HOMESTUCK %ANY%

I'm joking with the uncool club of people who only know because of the pilot or are gonna watch only the animated show(besides joke's on me for getting a fixation on homestuck in big 2025), assuming it goes forward and its good which I hope it is. Although yes I have been meaning to read it for ages now and thought now was as good a time as ever to read so. Also that it would be pretty funny to do so and in tune with the absolute chaos the fandom seems to find itself in due to a variety of issues, though am not keeping a whole lot of tabs on it partially due to a desire to keep spoilers to a minimum and just uh simply not wanting to deal with the chaos right now. Despite that to you my reader(s) consider this as my contribution to it! Even if it's really not going to plan from the start haha.. As I originally sought to do this a daily thing, read 400 chapters or so then update website, instead I became too engrossed with it and put it off eventually deciding to do the update with the destruction of Derse by Jack Noir(aka when MeGaLoVania plays, it on YouTube was my first exposition to Homestuck[yes I found it due to Undertale]) but then again wound up reading ahead up to chapter 3595 where Aradia(God), Past Robo-Aradia, Sollux and Jade are all about to witness something crucial in a bubble. Doesn't help I'm trying to finagle my way around Emacs something else I've been meaning to learn for ages, which just makes this process all the more tedious. In spite of all this I've been having loads of fun with it, it's tickling and altering brain chemistry like media did when I was a young teen, which makes me beat myself for not having read it sooner but also incredibly glad I didn't read it sooner because otherwise I'd have been extremely annoying about it.

However now to actually start talking about it, I'll just be giving my thoughts. I'd try to do a sorta general recap but seeing as I've reached up to arc 5 pt.2 it seems rather unatainable, and tiresome. I'll still mention various points though when necessary. But enough of that so what momment hooked me? Page 82.

The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.

"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire." -Walt Whitman

Yes, you are certain Walt Whitman said that. One hundred percent positive.

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

There was just something about it, the slow animation showing the empty surroundings with the slow rise of what's effectively the title screen painting a very different picture of what was before. The wind behind(which could even be interpreted as foreshadowing) with the slow tune of the windchimes. Despite all the silly 2009 internet humor, despite all the jokes and rapidly flashing gifs and interactive Flash bonanza. There's gonna be some quiet, down to earth momments of reflection, something more beneath all that sillyness and I want to get to it.

Now I've talked about the momment that hooked me, I think it's only fitting I talk about which character of the starting 4 I like the most! For that it goes to Jade, guess it's not much of a shocker I am a furry programming a website right now so already two things in common there, the idea of also keeping colored finger bands for remembering things is also really smart, to the point I might consider giving it a shot(yes I know it's for the dream stuff but I looked it up and some people have done similar things irl too!). She's definetly one of the most fascinating characters with how many wild turns her backstory takes, wouldn't surprise me if she takes a role in taking down Jack due to how he seems reluctant to hurt her due to Bec's influence. I also sorta relate a lot to her position in the story right now, kind of lost to an extent had what was arguably the best life out of everyone completely turned upside down and now left as arguably the bottom player of the group. Despite this there are limelights.

While I'd like to talk about Rose whom I aslo quite like I think to keep things short I'll move on to my favorite Troll and frankly... It's a damn hard choice between the dysfuctional bastards. Feferi's just nice and was also drawn to her due to her symbol being pisces(even if I don't believe in the stuff) and she is pretty fun and wonder what sort of role she's gonna take in the future despite, seemingly being dead I hope it's not the last of her. Kadaya's also quite nice, she's calm and whatnot I'd like to have her as a friend. Nepeta is just... What is there to say a perfect representation of the person she embodies and I love her for it. If I mention Nepeta gotta mention Equibus, didn't really like him during introductions but he grew on me! Genuinelly hilarious guy, thought he was gonna be all menacing and stuff when he just turned into the butt of the joke for the stupid bloodcolor caste system(forgot the actual name, probably will change when I bother to check). I think the only one I'd say I dislike is probably the so called prince of hope who went on a murder rampage. Screw him.

One thing that quite stood out for me was the Syllabadex system, it's super cool in my opinion an inventory based management system based off of different data structures or whatever else(like operation lol how does that one even work?). It even got me thinking about one already have the concept just need to work around its kinks a bit. Speaking of the systems in place genuinelly would love if there were a Homestuck game the mechanics even if quite obtuse at points due to parody do seem genuinely interesting a co-op adventure between servers and clients building up a predetermined enviroment, it's neat and apparently other people think so with stuff like the Genesis Project but haven't checked those out or the offcial game because I don't wanna get spoiled.

Genuinelly quite loving Jack as a villain so far a very force of nature sort of in the current Bec form. Though there are the other midnight crew members and its neat seeing their interactions and the eventual build up to Lord English(gotta figure out how to do the text thing, actually beautify this a bit with css) who seems to be posed as the final villain. The sequence of Desdre being destroyed is just awesome, honestly most big large momments are so awesome, when John achieves deity status, Prospit being shown, it's so gorgeous despite it's always seemingly pixelated style. It really shows the wonders of stylization and what it can do to anything no matter the limitations found.

Part of me really wants to go ahead and say more but as it stands am pretty tired and trying to write a long document in a program I don't quite understand is quite frustrating. So I'll leave my thoughts here.

2025|18|09 -- So ends Part 1

So ends part 1, of course I didn't just stop reading at the point the disc was scratched no. I had to go in and do all of Cue Ball's intermission and everything else that added on top of everything. I have to say it really is quite lame the time I actually decided to get up and get started on writing this, basically missed all of part 1 with it which is where a bunch of stuff and first reactions are being had, alongside general sentiment(from what I heard is) it being the actual good part. Unfortunately this is what we get, no fancy time powers to go back but with the nature time works, Alpha timeline me would've still wound up missing most of the first part while Doomed me would've probably tripped on something and died, idk.

Ah yes another thing before getting into the commentary proper is to address how I'm reading since to my knowledge there has been a couple issues with it. Currently I'm using the Unofficial Collection, the downloadable version which is here, running it under linux(Arch btw[actually EndeavourOS but that's just Arch with stuff bundled]) I did run into an odd issue with it where it just refused to start however running it through the terminal and then launching the program with the option --no-sandbox in-front of it and now works fine! So try that if you're having issues under Arch or whatever other distribution you're using!

Now onto this day's commentary for starters I was not expecting to have felt this down regarding Vriska's demise. I genuinelly didn't think I'd end up liking her as a character with her introduction all sorts of evil and frankly pretty fucked up things she did but even with those it was undeniable her with the unique design, and strong personality laid out. Not only that the interactions with Mr. Cue Ball put out from the start the deeper layers her character had, I just didn't think they'd have tugged to me as they would've by the end of her journey.

It's a tragedy, Vriska ultimately fashioned herself a puppet-master, someone with control over the minds of others, able to merely will them into her bidding without even having to use her words which she's quite adept, by the end of her journey she has mastered the forces causality itself, being able to steal luck and effectively amassed all of it into herself. Despite all this though she was merely a puppet from the beginning, beholden to the hemospectrum believing herself destined for greatness and above her peers, unable to see beyond the society which she had been molded a society which had been tailor made to prepare them for the games, her inability to see beyond it meant she wound up hurting everyone around her, Tarvos, Terezi, Kandaya, quite literally everyone as she positioned herself center-stage in the events causing Jack to achieve demi-god status. Only then by the end of her time in the world would she start to realize may this wasn't what she wanted, perhaps how things even needed to be. How screwed up things she had done were, to the point she sought to redeem herself, a heroic death bringing down Jack.

Although it would be Heroic would it? At this point the situation would be akin to a fireman putting out a fire they themselves started. While the act might've been forever regarded with heroism for destroying the vile Man-Beast, ultimately she herself was responsible for him in a sense. She understood this as mentioned previously, so sought a fight to finally redeem herself, a fight to be remembered in legend fondly, a final way to appease her ego as to say "Yes this was all worth it". The act would've been Heroic, but the person was not, even she had gone out the intent could be still argued as selfish and as such, she was struck down, not by the hero she courted and groomed to the same tier as her but one of her own, the Seer of Time, the judge who knew when luck mattered and when it did not, who could go beyond it. Depriving such an ego of the ending it seeks, right as it questions the path they took, it was merely just.

2025|19|09 -- So last title was a lie

Ok before I mention anything else, my god Jade was who reached god Tier, well I suppose all 4 of them sorta reached it? Here I was thinking it'd only have been two of them like a chump. Although that said I love her god-tier design so muuuuch, she looks so cool and her utilization of the powers was also the coolest. I was fully expecting her symbol to have been rose's with the whole dark motiff sorta thing specially after AH showed up with that shirt in black. Though enough glee over the god tier Jade.

Back onto talking about Vriska instead! Her ending with the scrap book is also so poetic, by the end she was truly enfatuated with John and was hoping to perhaps even see him one last time. Which she would just not the John she had hoped, not the John that she had joked and bonded with, the one her actions brought to the realm of gods. But instead the one killed at the hands of the same who ended her life, the John that never grew to the heights he could.

Was absolutely gut-wrenching hearing Karkat talk about his failures as an Ectobiologist and blaming himself for effectively everything that happened to that point. Though things would seemingly turn out ok and the legendary highly risky 5x showdown ultimately just ending being Karkat patting Gamzee a lot to calm him down lol(also wasn't this Moirail ship in Nepeta's wall? Pretty sure it was). On the topic of interesting it is quite cool how the butterfly effect comes to play, with ultimately the terrorizing with clowns of dream john being what caused the whole thing into the prototyping of the Harlequinn and Jack becoming quite annoyed at the stupid wardrobe choices.

It's really hard to put into words the many many things going on at once when I'm just reading up until my heart's desire without any regard for official arcs, Nepeta and Rose's sprite interacting was hilarious. Just Aradia as whole flying just being happy after what was effectively multiple life times of misery, and all the robot weirdness Equibus caused. Hadn't expected for things to continue after the scrapbook was finished to continue in the old universe for a bit more, but it was so satisfying to see things continue, the sprites talking, Jade's awakening the mutual activation of the bomb. I wonder if we'll ever see them again in the future after the hard reset, it was said they wouldn't necessarily die.

Also I have to say Homestuck really does take the Web aspect of webcomic up a notch. With it having used flash and all sorts of css, html and other web development stuffs as the medium the story is told through! Really shows how much more potential the medium has with it being creatively used, unlike the forever scrolling model that is popular. I feel like way more could be done, specifically have to switch around orientation, sliding in different directions during a fight. Way more potential there than one would think at first.

2025|20|09 Act 6 Part 1

Finally somewhat entered into a timely schedule to write these, probably still gonna read more of it beyond and update later but I have to say I am really enjoying seeing the descendants of the original four are like! Fundamentally they're still the same characters as the ones they take after, Jane ultimately shares Jade's skepticism of things, John is still a goofy dork with a heart of gold, Lalonde is still the most knowledgeable(despite being a drunk) and Dave's descendant still has that irony memelordness.

Also Dirk Stride(learned his name after being spoiled looking for pins oops) is hilarious, having Dave's irony laced speech but now with Rose's eloquence is honest to god so funny. Him being into robots instead of puppets is really cool and does feel like a natural progression of the thing while alluding to the pairing. Even if the traits aren't necessarily 1 to 1 with the parents and more they had all their traits put in a blender and through organized chaos came out with specific ones. Not everything swaps as well, assuming that unlike Jane and Jake, Dirk and Lalonde are in similar positions as their Beta Counterparts.

I thought Jade's island was cool but Jake's is just such an interesting enviroment! With all the overgrown pumpkins and most importantly the Lusus! I wonder what's up with that I assumed the chance of Kandaya reviving the Trolls as a race was gone but with them there it makes me think that there may be a chance for them yet, well I assume if the story has a happy ending they would but still! I wonder what role they'll be playing in the story. Specially since Jake as the Johnny English themed stuff(and shares a surname).

Jane was also neat seeing her as this person about to inherit a company(whose is looking suspicious like a certain ancestor whisked away to bring about an arrival) her references to problem sleuth and other pulpy dective stuff was pretty fun. Yeah I read problem sleuth in a single day hah, very much worth a read. But then she blew up, right when windchime foley was playing. A pretty good subversion goading people to think it was gonna be just a repeat of the first few chapters only for that to happen. Her dreamself should be alive still so maybe it'll come with that at play? Specially seeing the first thing she mentioned regarding propist was that strange dream with Jake.

Lalonde I wish I had more to say about her. Although I do think I need to see more of her, like the symbol with the mutant cat though wonder if that'll be relevant to her.

2025|21|09 - Act 6 Part 2&3 and Intermissions

Roxy Lalonde's my favorite of the new quartet. Another absolute troublemaker her combination of sick girl haxxer skillz and generally completely chaotic personality just ensures that no matter what's going on screen it's always gonna be pretty damn interesting. Also both her and Dirk being hundreds of years in the future does serve to make them being in possession of such wild tech make more sense, admittedly I wasn't caring about that because you had Jade already at that time who had the 4th wall window and bec so... Even if it was present day everyone always has some wacky sci-fi-ish thing going on.

The time in the ship and meteor has been a complete riot, genuinelly do wonder how the Ghostbusters MMO would be like, also like how the images for it were probably from second life at least it really reminded me of it. I had also been wondering what Gamzee was gonna do at the time only for Trevisprite to become a thing, I'm wondering if there's an actual role for Vriska still or if she's just gonna be a joke character from here on out. Her story seems pretty set in stone though the introduction of her ancestor from the original(?) timeline maybe means they'll meet at some point. Speaking of Trevisprite is there going to be other troll amalgam sprites? That won't be just in a couple of pages for a joke pretty much.

Also poor Jane she keeps being blown up, first with the assassination attempt, then with how her tower was blown up in prospit now with Trevisprite forgoing existance. Speaking of her the design of her world is quite haunting, barren but with an odd beauty to it. I do wonder what it'd have looked like with a successful seeding, specially since what seemed most likely to feed into it would've been John's alternate timeline self, who's Jane's granpa. Also wonder how the other worlds will turn out.

Though back to the travel between universes, Karkat and Dave interacting was something, poor Karkat despite all the knowledge in Romcoms they just can seemingly get the hang of relationships. admittedly this is very complicated interspecies business as well, so naturally it's understanding by the end of it it'd just be the two of them drawing dicks on a notebook because what else could even be accomplished at this rate lol.

One things of note is how they described how two clowns would become President of the United States in the last elections of the free world which, well not exactly a 100% accurate assessment but it's very very very close. I guess it goes to show how when an author/piece of media is very much inserted in cultural zietgeist it can end up in these coincidental predictions of future events.

There's still events from it floating around in my mind from the pages but my god, reading too much in one does just make it hard to put the thoughts into paper. All of it is extremely unorganized. Maybe I oughta write a short plan before putting it to html.

2025|24|09 - Cherubs, Ancestors and Shipping

Calliborn and Callilope the two make a very interesting concept for a species, one whose reproduction is based on whose personality ends up dominating the whole at adulthood. Also should've seen coming a mile away that Lord English would've been part of the time loop bonanza that happens so hopefully the name Calliborn will not be forgotten. As for Calliborn herself poor her, she just wanted to write her fanfiction and chill, thought that maybe this game they'd be able to collaborate as siblings for once but that wasn't meant to be. I do wonder if she is permanently present, many of the things that happened like the big match between Alpha and Beta trolls were in her diaries and such so maybe she's closer by than they think. Also cool how both of them in an out of story sense represent fans in Callilope and haters in Calliborn, despite hating everything so much Calliborn can't stop looking at it and wants to just put down everything Callilope does.

On the topic of Trolls of though wow the ancestors are assholes most of them at least and not in the fun a way the Beta trolls being mostly hey I've known someone like this guy online while the Alpha ones really give return to high school vibes. Somehow the most murderous one ends up being one the most ground to earth. Though I think with the descriptions we got of their society I could see why some of them would just go nuts. Also my god it's frankly an achievement how much of an asshole Cronus specially compared with their Alterna counterpart it is frankly impressive. Korluz and Meulin were fun though how their sign language is translated into Gifs it's quite neat, and I'm starting to actually consider if Gamzee being the most important character in homestuck is actually true beyond a maybe elaborate bit with the ammount of attention he's been getting. Important one too.

As for the things with the humans things seem to be somewhat figured out, nice to Vriska and John interact again was cute, also poor John is starting to realize a lot of things you watch when you were younger aren't as great as you thought when you're older. Also Kandaya and Rose's whole dating escape was hilarious, genuinelly smooth moves on her part with the four quadrant lines only to end falling down as set of stairs lmao. Things seem to be getting interesting between each other and their relations and I wonder what the incoming meeting with the Ancestors/Descendants is gonna be like.

2025|26|09 - Back to speedreading somewhat

Welp couldn't contain myself and back to speedreading it even more speedy I suppose, don't regret it one bit. Also god damn it I knew I should've not dismissed Gamzee as the most important character as a bit! The bastard set up English with the game! How?! How did they even do that? What sort of time shicanery is going on that allowed Gamzee to even do that?! Are they also gonna end up getting their hands on the canon unstucker like John did?

Anyways onto talking more about Caliborn wow what a fucking guy. The alphabro gamer type rolled up together into one hateable package, yet that also touches into extremly annoying fanfictions of self indulgence. I wonder if there's many of those Dave strider fanfics around or if the march of time has deleted all of those be it by embarassment tightening on policies on what's postable or just slow slow link rot. Seeing the guy having to deal with all the shennanigans brought on by the leperchauns, gamzee and the narrator's great. Oh and then when they finally get to write their crappy story, already told what I think about but what a throw back seeing one of those how to draw manga books. I remember having a pdf of one though specifically for furries in my now dead drive but I could go look for it. Specially now that I got a drawing tablet.

Continuing from Caliborn guess it's fair to talk about the treasure meant to kill him and what a dozy the whole sequence of events around that was, Travos just bailing with most of them, Aradia managing to creep John into story time, Areana deciding to go crazy and basically acting like Vriska did previously, self-reflection of Vriska's part and now John becoming unstuck from canon to the point they can join and muck about Caliborn's story time, so much going on as usual.

Also on the topic of things that happened from the unstucking, Jade died! Or well at least for now her eyes seemed white and with Jane having her revive powers maybe we're still gonna see her again. Though makes sense she'd be written off for a bit from the hero's side with all her damn powers. Green Sun and Space Witch is one hell of a combination. Also I did one of the quizzes before and got the same classpect as Jake which my god that is strong. Anyways silly quiz taking aside once again a lot happening Rose's worst fears of the Kisnemisis between Tereze and Gamzee finally coming to fruition, Kanaya's blood buying sequence, the Arrival of Jack and Mail Delivery girl(forgot her name) just whole lot and hey only a thousand or so pages left so shouldn't take much if I go at this pace. Also Roxy's once again just being great personality wise.

Oh right almost forgot to mention the whole Juju situation and how it blew dear, sweet, precious Fefeta she was so sweet and precious why'd she have to blow up, though Nepeta and Feferi seem like good friends now because of it. Anyways yeah that whole situation was something which I do not have many words to describe other than it was one of the things that happened in Homestuck.

2025|27|09 - Almost at the end

Well almost finished with the story currently at chapter 7515 a whole lot to talk about and a whole lot to think on my end. Though maybe not necessarily for public posting on the internet but anyways trying to sorta keep this mess organized, I guess in the next paragraph I'll talk about Caliborn.

Caliborn's a really nice villain I think, such a clear parody of a type of guy online that is so annoying but when put in the context of an annoying little green skull bastard becomes endlessly entertaining. Whole Homosuck sequence was great and that stop motion couple of pannels was quite unexpected but nice, and the whole mental breakdown saw sequence, I remember all those random saw flash games where they'd take a random character and plop them in a saw movie style gauntlet, played a bunch of those. Although yes, Caliborn very interesting villain while the fight was sorta already went through I do wonder if we'll see the fight happen again though this time be solved by giving Calilope the ring and then saying her name to wake her up in Lord English? Seems to where it'll go.

So far I've neglected to talk about John and everything but damn, he's cool just a nice guy the Heir of breath which if my looking intos of Claspects means he also represents freedom I think? Although yes John Egbert very nice fellow, and now they have the power to literally retcon the story which basically included ensuring Terezi's life wasn't a complete mess so that she'd have a better life and Vriska remained alive to sorta serve as a group guide. He's kind of perfect in that while not really an every man they just function as a sorta straight-man to all the insanity around him from everyone which just makes him sorta endearing, despite everything It's still same good hearted Egbert though much more mature and realized. Now they're a beyond-canon prankster of the first order!

Kinda wish I had some more things to say reflect on the cool big fight but it feels somewhat bittersweet? Basically been reading this and obsessing over it and now it's getting to the end. Even so It has been nice the big fights, seeing how all the neat web stuff was incorporated how all the fire flies floated around, the glitchiness, everything really. Homestuck really is a webcomic, it truly uses the web part of the medium to its fullest extent.

The End

Wow that was, something. It feels hard to describe the ending really? I liked it, more than what I was expecting at least from all the murmors I had heard of it but it didn't seem that different from Problem Sleuth. Some parts were weird? Like (Vriska) and Vriska's meet up it seemed like a perfect opportunity for what was Vriska to get it shoved into her face she shouldn't be a dick because even that is mentioned with her being unable to have a black or red romance due to being too self-centered. Threads were left hanging but in a way that sorta felt like the point? Since arcs often aren't just neatly tied into bows and things continue, you shouldn't listen to folks like Caliborn in the end winning against him was just not giving him attention leaving the canon where he dominated so to speak, to an extent even Vriska doesn't get what she wants we don't get to see his defeat and therefor her final victory. Some issues just seem to be how the author might look at live which I disagree, but in the end it was an enjoyable nicely tied in a bow good ending. Now without flaws, it dragged on and god forbid having to have gone through a weekly release of all the things it's enjoyable reading it all if you have the time but my god I can see why people got annoyed and then a lot of things feeling unifinished despite everything I can see how people would riot. Maybe I just can't see the issues fully people have at the momment to blinded by my excitment over it, but genuinely enjoyed it. Maybe I'll also read the Epilogues but frankly I'd like to not put the 18+ tick on the website and seeing their laid out tags in the ao3 format they're presented in It'd probably have to come on. Even if my really short statements have just been pretty surface level due to my own chaotic reading of it.