Note: What follows is a spoiler-y roughly 10k word emotional reflection on Homestuck and its accompanying media properties (the Epilogues, games, etc.)

 I possess an unwavering belief that the piece of media you entangle yourself with most at the ripe age of thirteen will irrevocably influence your entire being henceforth. This was true for me, at least, who had the (mis)fortune of reading Homestuck around that special age. Thirteen was an age that child me eagerly anticipated believing it to be the golden year that the floodgates would finally open and I would be permitted to play the coveted Nightlife and University expansions for Sims 2 that I was deprived of due to perceived inappropriateness, much to the dismay of my vampire-loving fledgling heart. This was also the age to be reached with the imminent world-ending terror of 2012 on the horizon which I, of course, took very seriously on account of being a foolish kid jam packed with anxiety.

 Little did I know that my brief middle school weeaboo stint would be obliterated by my younger sister’s best friend forcing me to read the first act of Homestuck. Charmed as I was by all those initially quirky pop cultural references that flew over my head and assorted programming jokes I would only later come to understand, it was only when I first heard the Sburban Jungle theme that I was hooked and then my interest was fully cemented with the end of Act 1 flash: [S] John: Take bite of apple. I knew Homestuck would become something special to me.

 Through my influence and insistence, Homestuck dominated my middle school friend group and we all threw ourselves into the fray of a new fandom. I was an accursed shepherd for the only people I would effectively shamelessly badger into Homestuck until more recently. While my real life friends partook in cosplay/LARP dalliances and headcanon jams with me, none of them (to my knowledge) cultivated the particular brand of lasting relationship I had with Homestuck: fantrolling. By which I mean creating and roleplaying my own fan characters based on the infamous gray-skinned troll species.

 But first, some essential background on what Homestuck even is.

 Well, what is Homestuck? An age old question. For the uninitiated, Homestuck was an 8,000+ page multi-media internet fiction webcomic featuring flash animations, occasional interactive games, original music, and lots of text. It was created by Andrew Hussie and published on their site MS Paint Adventures starting on April 13 2009 (a highly significant date/number in the comic) and followed a group of four young teenage internet friends who played a reality-warping game that ushered the destruction of Earth in order to create an entirely new universe at the end of the game. Whilst Homestuck was not directed for the entirety of its run through the influence of reader-submitted commands, Homestuck is a piece of media that is inherently linked to its infamous fanbase and internet contexts. Beyond reader commands directly shaping the broader landscape and direction of the story, much of the comic acts as a direct response to the comic’s reception from exploration of meta elements related to the author and their relationship to their creation to characters embodying facets of the fandom (which, unfortunately, can get quite mean spirited - see my later discussion on the negatives of the Homestuck experience regarding the dancestors).

 The predominant associated feature of Homestuck that exploded the fandom’s popularity and paved the way for Homestuck to cement its problematic fandom history was the introduction of an alien species called the trolls. Based on archetypes of internet trolls or general denizens of the internet, the trolls are gray-skinned insectoid aliens with iconic candy corn colored horns and orange eyes. Permanently etched into my brain wrinkles is the comment that they “look like NFTs,” a comparison I hope eventually dates this article horrendously. The trolls hail from a violent alien society on their planet Alternia with a rigid blood color based caste system that is reflected in the text color each individual troll types in. Trolls are also unique for their typing quirks, inspired by the 1337 speak spawned by the early internet. Trolls use wacky, over-complicated language to describe basic things (well certain trolls do, this terminology is in large part caste-based) and do not experience typical family structures, instead being raised by all-white beasts known as lusii. However, I suspect the most influential factor past the species’ iconic appearance in spawning the phenomenal fanbase Homestuck managed to acquire rested in the complicated quadrant romance system practiced by trolls which seemed tailor made for the shipping fixated elements at the heart of many fandoms.

 Troll romance is divided into four quadrants each represented by a card suit: matespritship ♥ (flushed red concupiscent romance), kismesissitude ♠ (caliginous black concupiscent romance), moirallegience ♦ (pale red conciliatory romance), and auspisticism ♣ (ashen black conciliatory romance). The concupiscent romances (♥♠) serve reproductive and thus sexual purposes while the conciliatory romances (♦♣) are nonsexual relationships serving to pacify the involved parties. Red romances (♥♦) are founded on more positive feelings whereas black romances (♠♣) are founded on more negative feelings. As for what these quadrants exactly entail, matespritship is the closest possible form of romance to what humans experience though there is textual support for the idea that due to Alternian troll nature the relationship is more founded on the emotion of pity. This could, however, be a misanthropic misrepresentation attributable to the youth of our protagonists who discuss quadrant dynamics as more familiar terms like “love” are used in the accounts of older trolls. Kismessitude, the other concupiscent quadrant, is essentially a romantic rivalry founded on hateful feelings of mutual respect and admiration. Vital to as healthy kismesissitude is the inducement of feelings that drive both parties to improve themself in the pursuit of thwarting their remarkable romantic adversary. A moirallegience could be described as a “platonic soulmate” (except it’s technically not platonic given that this is Indeed a form of romance) founded primarily on the idea of pacification. Alternian trolls are incredibly volatile and dangerous to the point of requiring a “better half” with the capacity to temper their behavior. Auspisticism is a complicated quadrant involving three participants. Not all antagonistic relationships can blossom into healthy kismesissitudes and necessitate a mediating intervention by a third party. This third party is known as an auspistice who experiences the ashen desire to intervene in the dynamic either to prevent caliginous infidelity, a toxic kismesissitude, or otherwise quarantine a dynamic so that it does not ruin the lives of either the trolls involved or those who have to bear witness to it.

 Now you may be asking the question - was an entire paragraph dedicated to explaining troll romance strictly necessary? Personally I’d argue that it was. Not only because it was a self-indulgent exercise, but because it really taps into the core of why I loved Homestuck so much and devoted myself to fantrolls. I was endlessly fascinated by the dynamics that could spawn from the quadrant system and the ripe potential for catastrophic quadrant vacillation. In particular I was drawn to the brutality of a kismesissitude and potency for compelling relationship dynamics centered on the idea of your most loathed enemy still managing to find admirable qualities in you that render you a formidable adversary. There was a distinct lack of healthy caliginous romance depicted in the comic for any meaningful on-page number of time with the most prominent example of a kismesissitude being decidedly unhealthy and in a dire need of an auspistice to break it up. Trolls are by far the most interesting species I’ve ever encountered with so many built in characteristics to innovate off of and develop that I felt it was impossible to not dabble in creating some of my own trolls. Or rather they were so sparsely designed with countless glaring gaps in their worldbuilding that I was unable to resist inventing my own sorely needed explanations. Once I had created trolls, I yearned for a form of utilizing them beyond just writing out extensive profiles and drawing them. I started roleplaying.

 Initially, I started with roleplaying on Pesterchum, a program created based off the in-universe Pesterchum chat client that the characters used to communicate and most of the early comic dialogue exists in the form of these chat logs. Later on I discovered the now controversial (and long dead) platform MSPARP. MSPARP, or PARP as we often referred to it, was a platform intended for randomly matching roleplayers playing either canon or original characters with one another through random Omegle-esque assignments or through chat rooms. These chatrooms often took place in dream bubble settings which are liminal locations negotiated into creation with the eldritch horrorterrors (essentially Lovecraftian outer gods) that allow for the dead to continue existing as ghosts and for dreamers to visit in their sleep. These bubbles are amalgamations of dreams and memories experienced by all who wander through them and operate under the volatility of a dream’s logic. Dream bubbles were naturally ideal roleplay settings which can be shaped into a diverse array of forms based on the needs for a given scene and to act as a crossroads for alternate universes, especially when original characters are involved. Though frequently this boundless creative potential usually manifested in the form of a hive (i.e. troll house) with a large common room that contains a minimum of one couch of indeterminate size. Many antics were had on this universal constant of a couch. In the very first fantroll chat I joined I met some of the best and worst people I have ever known that would go on to irreparably shape my teenage years. Very few of these people I still have regular contact with today, but for all the ups and downs they remain the most cherished friends of my heart that I have known longer than any other in my life, outlasting even that original group of irl friends I originally introduced Homestuck to as I no longer have contact with any of them. My humble beginnings with fantrolling starting with a loosely thematically coherent collection of individually themed trolls bloomed over time to encompass three complete sessions with a variety of other fragment sessions and individual rp trolls amounting to a grand total of around 60 fully fleshed out fantrolls plus 15 fankids and a trollsona. Obviously not all of them saw active roleplay use and one session I made a personal commitment to avoid roleplaying entirely to keep it a project under my exacting personal control. Of these 75 total characters only about seven saw regular use to the extent that I consider them part of my core roster. These characters evolved dramatically over their lengthy roleplay history over the course of multiple different MSPARP chats as they inevitably rose and fell. For a period of time, due to a very complicated series of events, my core friend group and I were even driven off the platform and had to create our own personal forum to stay in touch and make token attempts at roleplaying. Drama of all breeds was abundant during this era as much as you would expect it to be for a bunch of nerdy teenagers roleplaying as violent little aliens on the internet.

 That all being said, my relationship with Homestuck throughout most of my life operated as an offshoot of the comic with the source material functioning more as a springboard and was increasingly less about the comic itself. My fantrolls even became less and less tied to the game itself for a while, only having the game be a distant memory that explained their presence in the dream bubbles for roleplay antics. I cannot truthfully tell you whether or not I actually finished the comic. I have only a distinct memory of watching [S] Collide (the end of act 6 animation) and discussing it in an MSPARP OOC chat where I expressed my nebulous disappointment. I remember this distinctly because someone in that chat mocked me for being disappointed for some reason, possibly their personal issues with me. Whether or not I actually read any of the pages leading up to the animation remains a mystery to me as, to be later discussed in the re-read section of this article, none of the pages rang any bells and genuinely surprised me. I have literally no memory of watching the Act 7 animation that officially ended the comic. Even the style of the animation felt entirely alien as if I had not even seen screenshots of it floating around the web, which is ridiculous because I have distinct memories of watching videos that covered the events of the end of the comic and included footage of this animation. There’s truly no way to tell what I had actually read of the end of the comic due to the disastrous haze that is my memory, particularly from the time in my life wherein the comic ended. I know that I dropped off regularly catching up with updates sometime during one of the pauses, perhaps the gigapause, and once the comic resumed I made a lower priority out of keeping up with updates despite my continued daily participation in fantrolling activities whether it be actively roleplaying, participating in OOC conversations in fantroll chats, or simply independently working on my fantrolls. I kept up with fantrolls long after the comic ended and even when I eventually put them down for meaningful periods of time, they were never too far out of my mind and any time I dabbled with art again they sprang back to life under my pen. Naturally, when I began taking art seriously a large part of what I drew was my fantrolls now that I had the skill to render them more precisely than ever before with all my concentrated adoration.

 I began re-reading the comic on 8 June 2023 after stewing on the idea for several weeks and deciding that now was the time to execute my Vriska cosplay threats. The final nail in the coffin that condemned me to the re-read fate was stumbling across a saucy fanart of my beloved Snowman right after listening to an edit of Flare slowed down by 10% which led to me listening to my all time favorite Felt album and it all went out of control from there. As I plotted cosplay construction logistics, I began my re-read through the excellent Unofficial Homestuck Collection with supplemental listening of the equally excellent Homestuck Made this World podcast by Ranged Touch. This initial re-read effort took me up to the halfway point of Act 5 Act 2 when I got distracted by the routine-disruption caused by attending an out of town convention (apparently the convention in my area with the biggest Homestuck presence funnily enough) and went on to pursue other activities. It was only shortly after the 15th anniversary of Homestuck on 15 April 2024 that I resumed my re-read and finished the comic (plus the Epilogues and Homestuck: Beyond Canon) in under two weeks, keeping up with the Homestuck Made this World podcast the entire time. I originally kept an illustrated journal when I first started the re-read where I wrote down my thoughts and made little doodles about things going on in the comic that I managed to keep up over the entirety of the month that it took to get through just under the first half of the comic. The rest I read in a hyperfixated desperate mad dash to absorb every last drop of nostalgic goodness I could possibly squeeze out of the comic after an exhilarating high of rolling through the last part of Act 5 Act 2 culminating in the tear-inducing legendary animation [S] Cascade. [S] Cascade is undoubtedly the peak of the comic, a thirteen minute long animated confluence of numerous converging plotlines that recontextualize one another set to absolutely stunning music. I’m a musical fool with minimal technical knowledge to allow me to precisely communicate my exact feelings, but when that initial prominent note strikes at the start of Cascade a swelling pang of emotion ricochets throughout my entire body that only intensifies with each successive echoing note. If you’ve watched Cascade, you know what I’m talking about.

 But I’m getting ahead of myself again. What was it like revisiting this highly influential piece of media so inextricably laced with the mind-shattering embarrassment of my younger years? It was a veritable trip, I’ll give you that. I was endeared to the early parts of the comic more than I had been my first time around due to my greater knowledge of programming and subsequent ability to enjoy the data structures jokes surrounding the kids’ convoluted fetch modi. At the more leisurely pace I was reading the comic and documenting my experience, I was able to more reflectively appreciate the charming depiction of internet friendships that persists throughout the early comic. Homestuck depicts these dynamics like no other piece of media I’ve encountered, but perhaps I’m biased by virtue of how my own internet friendships spawned as a direct result of the comic. I was, unfortunately, painfully aware of the ways the comic has aged poorly as a product of the 2009 internet era with its flagrant use of ableist slurs and racist jokes. Hussie has an awful tendency to make an utter ass of themself anytime they touch on anything in the realm of race which is a topic that has been rightfully discussed at length by those much more qualified to speak on the matter than I. The issue transcends mere thoughtless era-”appropriate” racism as evidenced in later Homestuck-related projects produced by Hussie themself. I acknowledge that these elements can make Homestuck an unwelcoming piece of media for many and am grateful that settings for the Unofficial Collection exist to remove this content to make the comic more accessible and leave less of a sour taste in the reader’s mouth. Though the fact that these options are necessary is disappointing to say the least. These missteps, regardless of the extent of the debatable progress made by the author to do better, cannot be forgotten entirely.

 This time around I was really compelled by the game mechanics heavy parts of the comic and a lot of the content that existed on the periphery of my awareness as a thirteen year old rushing full speed ahead to get to the trolls (not rushing so fast that I skipped the intermission, of course, for I am no monster). This interest is undoubtedly influenced by my persistence in my fantrolling to construct a complete session of my own design which I’ve technically yet to fully do. I’ve at least never managed to decide on all the necessary game-relevant information for an entire session’s worth of trolls, but that’s still in the works for me and the itch to go back to tinkering with my trolls pestered me throughout the entirety of the early comic. In addition to appreciating these other aspects of the comic more, I actually understood what was going on this time around and realized just how much of Homestuck is characters explaining what either happened or will happen in the comic. If you miss something, it will almost always be explained to you later. Potentially multiple times. A lot of the stuff with the exiles and the events leading up to Jack Noir’s ascension completely flew over my head back then whereas now it slowly consumed me at the forefront of my interests. In fact, [S] Jack: Ascend is probably my favorite animation in the entire comic overtaking even the tear-inducing marvel that is [S] Cascade due to its wicked musical accompaniment.

 Act 5 on a re-read felt like coming home (or hive) to my beloved trolls. The trolls had become so diluted in my memory by the haze of time and the filtering effect of fandom interpretations which I had been exposed to more recently than canon itself. However, I realized miserably how little of the troll’s session we actually got to see play out in-comic and how rapidfire everything felt compared to the laboriously drawn out meanderings of the Sburb sections (not complaining here by the way). I didn’t want an exact rehash of the same things with a different alien coat of paint, but I could have sworn we saw more of their session. The lingering echoes of my younger self ultimately demanded in the end that I be there for the characters and character interactions and boy was I. My feelings haven’t changed much from their original stances: disliking Eridan and Gamzee, loving Terezi, Karkat, and Kanaya. Kanaya genuinely made me laugh out loud at a higher rate than any other character. Something about her quirk in combination with her really deadpan sense of humor really tickles me. I did end up appreciating Vriska a lot more, perhaps out of anticipation of cosplaying her and her entire fraught legacy. I have screenshots in my pictures folder of panels where hints of Vriska occurred before her proper introduction. I was just that excited for her. Act 5 Act 2 is by far my favorite part of the comic where everything goes to shit on the trolls’ end and everything starts to converge. My specific favorite section is towards the end with Doc Scratch where the site theme changes to the Felt colors and, alongside the events occurring in the main panel, side events unravel in the site header that slip in and out of focus with the main panel events, events so fast-paced you run the risk of missing what’s happening above you until Doc Scratch takes over in the main panel such as when he has to break up Snowman and Spades Slick’s hate-snogging. Then it all comes together in [S] Cascade, which I previously discussed. The legendary animation that crashed Newgrounds upon its original posting.

 While I still felt that the events culminating in [S] Cascade were the narrative peak of the comic, this did not mean that I didn’t enjoy the majority of Act 6. In fact, I enjoyed it a great deal outside of some lulls (and the dark pit that is the dancestors walkarounds *shudders*). This was a vast improvement over my original experience in which I vaguely recall skipping over a lot of the alpha kid’s pesterlogs. I even emerged from this section of reading with Dirk as a new favorite character completing my final favorites roster as: Dirk, Vriska, Terezi, Rose, Kanaya, and Karkat (unordered). Roxy was also a riot to read and contributed to some of the funniest moments in the comic such as when she blows up Jane’s computer with a fake game program she sent her and tells her to “step away from ur compuner / *puter / :3” which really got me for some reason. I also found Caliborn’s artist arc much more amusing now that I wasn’t reading the comic serially and finding my new update excitement dashed by horrendously drawn doodles slung by the villainous caricature of bad fans. This part of the comic suffered more noticeably from a persistent issue I have with Homestuck where moments of seriousness or emotional resonance are followed up immediately by something painfully silly to seemingly minimize what just happened. The worst offender to me personally was following up the first kiss between a drunken Rose and Kanaya with Rose falling down the stairs. This particularly annoys me as a huge fan of both characters and as a massive lesbian. Just prior to this is one of the lowest points in the comic with the aforementioned introduction of the dancestors. The dancestors who are, with exception of Meenah for the most part, embodiments of very particular internet people as opposed to amalgamations of general internet archetypes in a way that reads as rather mean-spirited. While the main trolls largely evolve past their two dimensional basis into their own characters, the dancestors are not afforded this luxury and instead remain one-note, generally unfunny cardboard cutouts at best that the fans have done a lot of legwork to try to do justice and make them more than the nothing they are. Not that I would particularly want the dancestors to get more screentime to flesh them out more, they already reeked too severely of missed potential. Aranea is the only good example of the dancestors being very particular embodiments of internet elements with her loquacious ways derived directly from the pages of her Alternian self, Mindfang’s, journals emulating the tendencies of fan theorists expounding on meta discussion topics at great, arguably unnecessary length. This pays off in another one of the funniest moments in the comic with her attempt at a leprechaun romance charms spiel. Not only are the dancestors disappointing characters, but the introduction of Beforus and the cultural differences between Beforus and Alternia with the reveal that Alternian trolls are only violent due to the influences of Doc Scratch meddling throughout its sordid history. This introduces a lot of worldbuilding questions and issues as to how troll society managed to function. The idea that Doc Scratch’s manipulation through The Handmaid was introduced earlier towards the end of Act 5 and I was content with this information assuming it meant that the still violent troll race simply had not reached the peaks of violence and warmongering that it potentially could. I simply found this development less interesting and was confronted with a need to explain why Alternian culture was the way it was in my fantrolling incarnations if there was no Doc Scratch to influence it or, if I wasn’t going to ignore this plot element entirely, I had to include Doc Scratch’s machinations in my worldbuilding. This feeds into a lot of problems with the worldbuilding being very sloppily entangled in a lot of convoluted plot elements and gags that would only make sense in the comic canonical setting and thus difficult to extricate from its source material. I cannot complain too much, of course, because it’s not like these elements had to be designed to be easily adaptable and expanded upon by the fans. It just creates a lot of headaches for me personally when building my indulgent little fansessions and OCs.

 Later we have one of the more controversial narrative choices in the comic: the decision to give John retcon powers and send him back in time to prevent Vriska from dying without her going off to fight Bec Noir. Then Vriska proceeds to solve everyone’s problems on the meteor. She circumvents Terezi entering a toxic kismesissitude with Gamzee or entangling herself further into a mess with Dave and Karkat (who instead become great friends, bordering on lovers). She also single handedly solves Rose’s drinking problem. She overtakes Gamzee’s role in coordinating sprite prototyping with the select corpses of her friends creating more functional sprite versions instead of grotesque body horror adjacent monstrosities like Tavrisprite that couldn’t abide existing. She also coordinated everyone upon arrival in the post-scratch session and plots out the entire plan of attack for the final battle. Vriska solves everything after a history of her plans almost universally going awry! Now I can’t hate on this turn of events too much. The animation where most of this was revealed [S] ACT 6 ACT 6 INTERMISSION 5 is set to one of my favorite soundtracks in the comic (Moonsetter), but it’s really ridiculous to believe that Vriska’s survival would cause this drastic of a change apart from fixing Terezi’s relationship problems by substituting them for a still not entirely healthy moirallegience (a brief aside: am I a hypocritical lesbian (specifically a lesbian known for their love of incredibly toxic sapphics) for not being as into the toxic yuri Vrisrezi situation as everyone else - instead I’m all here for the toxic ‘rails that cause problems for every single person in the blast radius of their pale nightmare circumstances (which is still a form of romance for trolls!)). Anyways, as a certified Vriska Enjoyer (not a defender, mind you, enjoyer) I won’t complain about more Vriska content. There could certainly have been worse retcon decisions to correct the catastrophe that played out in the phenomenally devastating [S] GAME OVER. I still really enjoy the aspect of this retcon choice where John and Roxy are the only two people from the original timeline before the retcon and have to live with that grief of everything spiraling out of control and the friends they know now not being the original incarnations that they knew. This conundrum raises a lot of interesting questions about what makes a person real in this context and if the relationship shared between John or Roxy and one of the other characters actually “counts.” The others in turn variably deal with the grief of having watched their John and Roxy die with John’s alternate self dying significantly more brutally for Jade who had to endure the remainder of the years long journey into the new session alone.

 The ending of the comic was initially disappointing to me. For all I can remember, this read through was the first time I’ve seen the ACT 7 animation as the art style was entirely unfamiliar as were the end credit snapchat posts. I didn’t know how to feel at first about the idea of there being no resolution to the fight with Lord English and the end of the comic being effectively all the surviving main characters other than Vriska simply exiting canon and as beautiful as the animation was in ACT 7 it made very little concrete sense and consisted primarily of watching a frog transform. Over the past handful of days at the time of writing (and after reading the Epilogues) I’ve warmed up to it. I can’t imagine what it was like to read the end of the comic at its initial release and have to sit with those feelings for exactly three years without any further resolution. Well, I have a small taste of that feeling because my last exposure to the comic in memory for all these years was my disappointment at [S] Collide which I enjoyed more on rewatch, but not all that much. It still felt like an underwhelming end to the comic and paled in comparison to the splendor that was [S] Cascade or even [S] GAME OVER. Even were I to discount the continuation provided by the Epilogues, as it stands, I believe the end to the comic was a solid open ending that served its purpose well.

 So, immediately after finishing my re-read, I dove into the highly controversial Homestuck Epilogues for the first time. Which was a choice. Speaking of choices: I read Candy first. Let me get this out of the way first: I like the Epilogues even though saying that I like them makes me feel some awful kind of way. To discuss my thoughts on the Epilogue, heavy spoilers are necessary, so again be forewarned. I cannot exactly endorse the idea of reading the Epilogues partly due to the nature of the content continued within (the content warnings are No Joke, do take heed) and partly because it is a massive dubiously canon shift in much of what people sought from the original comic contained in a 190,000 word nonlinear novel only co-written by the original creator. I could only advise reading this brutally unpleasant work with caution and managed expectations only on the condition that you read both parts. Fully reading both routes of the Epilogues seems most conducive to enjoying it. Reading either part, especially Candy, alone would likely produce a negative outcome. To start, something important to note about me is that I really like the meta elements of Homestuck. Or rather I liked them when I revisited the comic as an adult. Teenage me was ultimately there for the characters and worldbuilding alone feeling, if anything, confused by the meta jokes/commentary. The Epilogues are dripping with incredibly interesting metanarrative maneuvers, particularly in the Meat route (which I really now regret not reading first - reading Candy first just made me somewhat depressed and awfully dread-filled over the prospect of reading Meat afterwards). The Epilogues are also, in my opinion, incredibly well-written at a prose and dialogue level as I am a sucker for the particular voice it employs. The Epilogues also touched on some themes that I have personally always wanted to explore in my own writing, particularly the concept that gets executed in Candy regarding the potential horror of leaving the camera on for too long after the end to see the effectively “meaningless” post-canon existence without a narrative and what narrative does get injected into the route that crosses the threshold between realities produces horrific results. Absolutely no one gets what they want and everything is horrible at soap opera levels. Characters reckon with the reality of being forced to continue to exist in this seemingly idyllic world after having their life entirely ruined by the tragedy of the game without which they would have not even existed in the first place. Furthermore, they are subject to the implications of the existence of doomed timelines and John’s powerful retcon abilities. Are those that exist in the alternate realities real and do they matter? Are they effectively unimportant “NPCs”? Is anyone from any reality real unless they manage to ascend to an amalgamation of their varied selves from across all realities? Some of these really interesting discussions are tarnished by plain awful to read events. Prime examples include the mean spirited hyper-himbofication of Jake English who gets the worst possible treatment in both routes and the fallout of a Vriska x Gamzee incident that genuinely made me have to get up and take a brief walk before I could continue reading. A common complaint wielded against the Epilogues is that it butchers characterization and everyone acts incredibly OOC. I find this complaint neglects to consider the amount of off-screen development that would reasonably occur over the seven-ish year time skip of these characters living in a virtually post-conflict idyllic world over which they rule as gods. Each character still maintains a reasonable semblance of their original voice from the comic without running the risk of sounding too juvenile despite their development with age. The only exception to this is Jade’s character who changes drastically under the justification of doggy hormones influencing her system and making her behave in an erratically noncommittal horny manner (Editing Note: as part of my general softening on the Epilogues, I’ve also softened on this point in particular as it makes sense that this incredibly lonely and poorly socialized girl would behave in this way as she grew into adulthood). This behavior is epitomized in the Candy route when she painfully inserts herself in the fledgling Dave x Karkat relationship in a way that was truly unbearable to read even as someone who didn’t particularly care either way about the Dave x Karkat relationship prior to reading the Epilogues. It was an absurdly weaponized form of the “will they won’t they” plotline that stunted the progression of Dave coming to terms with his sexuality even if it paid off in one of the genuinely funniest moments in the Epilogues where he explains his 9 step system for coming out as gay to Roxy. Which also only functions as payoff since I read Candy before Meat and the aforementioned event only occurs in Meat. In Candy, the closest thing to payoff takes place in my least favorite scene in the entirety of the Epilogues wherein Dave confesses that he’s gay, despite being married to Jade, to a hologram of president Barack Obama. He proceeds to allow himself to be killed so he can ascend to an elevated state as an amalgamation of Daves across multiple iterations of reality in the form of Davebot. But I digress, for it is really disingenuous of me to report specific bizarre occurrences in the Epilogues as “evidence” of its failings or being terrible, this is a very tired method of besmirching the Epilogues that I do not wish to partake in outside of this singular incident. Especially when what ultimately draws me to the Epilogues is the structure and what it’s doing as a work with its meta commentary.

 I followed the Epilogues up with Homestuck: Beyond Canon, formerly known as Homestuck^2. My immediate first impression was that this continuation was more of the Epilogues, but without the truly interesting things they were attempting to grapple with. Or rather the attempt at continuing what was truly interesting about the Epilogues rapidly became tiresome and ineffectual. I didn’t have a terrible time reading them (until the Yiffy introduction) and took a perverse pleasure in the Cats musical references. The art (with exception of a few bafflingly awful looking panels) was a visually compelling evolution of the Homestuck style that at least sets the comic apart from your average well-produced fan adventure you’d find on MSPFA. My biggest complaint (Yiffy aside) is that the character voices apart from Dirk felt off. Strong character voice was always one of the core allures for Homestuck to me due to the masterful character writing on the part of Andrew Hussie who consistently nails compelling, distinctive character voices. The strength of character voice in the comic is to the extent that it’s made reading fanfiction or roleplaying canon characters difficult for me to enjoy by virtue of most interpretations lacking that essential quality of each character that no one can do like Hussie and (for the most part) the co-authors of the Epilogues who managed to nail evolutions of every character except Jade. My observations and critique necessarily remain brief and vague due to the unfinished nature of Beyond Canon. Whilst it is, to my knowledge, still in active production on a monthly schedule, it remains an unfinished work in its (presumably) early stages of the story and cannot fairly be compared to complete stories like the original comic and the Epilogues. I was intrigued enough to plan to keep up with future upd8s (if only because the idea of there being new upd8s to look forward to makes me awfully giddy and delighted to ponder).

 Afterwards, I played the games (Hiveswap, Friendsims, Pesterquest). Hiveswap Act 1 was a cute little romp that felt reminiscent of the pre-ACT 6 era of Homestuck. I was delighted beyond measure to see the breadth of interactions resulting from interacting with different items in different ways, though it became easily overwhelming to the point that I wasn’t able to try out every possible interaction and probably missed out on some sweet little gags. I was most interested in the Alternia section of the game getting a comprehensive look at the hives of two lowbloods absolutely dripping with their respective personalities. I was always interested in the hemospectrum facet of troll society and how Alternia’s cruel incarnation of hemospectrum-based bigotry dominated the lives of the lower castes. There are some aspects of the worldbuilding introduced/reinforced that I personally revolt against such as painting certain character/physical traits demonstrated by the original trolls shown in the webcomic as traits characteristic of a certain caste such as pronounced strength as a feature of bluebloods like Equius. I am also not fond of the extended zodiac roster of symbols and the listed characteristics of each blood. I find these worldbuilding elements to be woefully limiting and prefer the idea of some of the more unique qualities of our main trolls depicted in Homestuck proper to be anomalies rather than strictly representative of their castes. This stance is very much informed by the fact that I began my fantrolling antics well before the release of this information which contradicted a great deal of my closely held headcanon and traits of my most established characters. While I have no qualms with going against canon, it was personally disappointing to go into the games expecting to find exciting new lore to be influenced by and implement in the worlds of my characters only for a great deal of the new information to be things that ultimately limit my characters even more. Personal fantrolling problems aside, it was delightful to see a slice of a well-realized Alternia.

 Hiveswap Act 2, which I am writing about after having written the previous section, was something of a downgrade in quality notably in the area of the backgrounds being comparatively lackluster and the absence of as many delicious object interactions. This is understandable from the angle that the real highlight of the act is the introduction of all these fun trolls. Trolls which I generally liked with exception of the goldbloods and purplebloods for similar reasons I described about not liking troll worldbuilding elements established in Act 1. I didn’t care for the fact that the goldbloods had almost entirely weird eyes similar to Sollux. I don’t mind the element that the entire caste with its high rate of powerful psychic abilities often being condemned to the fate of the Ψiioniic (battery enslavement) as this has a pre-existing canonical basis, but I liked the idea that the physical traits of Sollux were due to him being a rare form of mutant. As for the purplebloods, I simply don’t like the idea that they’re all part of the clown cult. I was under the impression the religious clown cult was an oddity and not the norm for the caste. This is, certainly, one aspect of the canonical lore that I will actively ignore for my own fantrolls as I have no interest in carrying the torch for the juggalo jokes. Before I talk more specifically, it’s worth noting that I played Act 2 before I made my way through the Friendsims and Pesterquest, which were released before Act 2, because I really wanted to go directly into the second act after playing the first. Despite this potentially not ideal order, I really enjoyed the majority of the trolls I met in the game and found many to be endearing characters even with the little that I got. I was most fond of Ardata, Tyzias, Elwurd, and Lanque. Ardata made an especially strong impression on me despite her role being strictly limited to attempts at getting you locked up in her room for nefarious purposes that led to a game over. My only other major complaint is that the trial in the midbloods car was incredibly tedious and confusing to an unnecessary degree. I respect the decision and adored the sprites, but as someone who doesn’t get the game being referenced in this section it fell very flat for me. I should have, by all measures, really loved this act because it’s essentially a whole slew of canonical* fantrolls you get to mingle with and I do sincerely love hearing about people’s fantrolls. I don’t even mind that not much happened in a story progression sense either (apart from the fact that with the way the release schedule of these acts are going it’s unlikely that we will be getting a conclusion any time soon, if ever). Perhaps it’s because I didn’t entire the game with potential attachments to these new trolls (rendering me further unable to catch references made to their Friendsim routes) or because playing the two Acts in succession where the differences are more apparent was a mistake. In the end though, I don’t regret purchasing and playing the Hiveswap games despite their short length. They were sweet little romps rough edges and all.

 Continuing the spirit of these game reflections, my account of the Hiveswap Friendsim experience was written after my sections on Hiveswap Acts 1 and 2. A lot of my complaints regarding the troll worldbuilding made about Act 2 stand, particularly in regards to the lack of creativity with certain castes. The music was phenomenal and I was relieved to discover that every character had their own distinct theme tailored to their character and vibes. However, not all tracks were uniquely created for each character as some tracks were taken off existing Homestuck albums such as Ardata’s and Diemen’s. I have no complaints about this, it’s delightful to see some of these tracks get implemented in something. Perhaps I approached playing these friendsims the wrong way trying to do as many routes as possible on a given day, but I found going through them to be tedious at times and some characters began to blur together. I pondered if this lull could be attributed to potentially burning out on Homestuck content, but at this stage I was, if anything, more invested than Homestuck than ever having just put Secret Homestuck-related Plans into action (see closing paragraphs for details). There are also drastic differences in quality of writing and spritework that becomes especially noticeable when two characters appear on screen together (one notable example being comparing Elwurd and Bronya during one of Elwurd’s routes). While sure the trolls have mostly interesting quirks, only a handful of them really possess that signature distinctive voice a lot of Homestuck characters have. Oddly enough, some of these trolls had more distinctive voices in Hiveswap Act 2 despite having comparatively less dialogue (which may be a result of Act 2 releasing afterwards on the backbone of the Friendsim character writing). I’m also growing less fond of the idea that all the Alternian trolls just universally don’t have jobs and their society is shittily automated. I get that they’re all kids or teenagers and their real jobs will be out in space post-ordeals, but I like the idea of the trolls having to work prior to getting shipped out apart from the rare shopkeeper or influencer-style profession. The economy depicted would make a lot more sense as would some facets of the hemospectrum if it were a case where only highbloods didn’t have to work and most lowbloods did. One thing I do enjoy is the expansion of troll parlance with a lot of fun terminology and wordplays that I intend to implement in my own fantrolling writings. Speaking of language, my pettiest complaint (which may apply to all other troll-focused pieces of Homestuck, but it was just especially irksome in the Friendsims) is using the word “day” or “today” in reference to the “day” experienced over Alternia’s night. Trolls are a nocturnal species and very few can withstand the powerful rays of their sun during the day and it’s not actually day they’re talking about! I wouldn’t have been nearly as bothered by this language usage if I hadn’t a lengthy history of going out of my way to avoid committing this most horrid pet peeve of mine when writing my trolls. Now for the list of characters I found memorably enjoyable/well-written: Polypa, Elwurd (on account of me being a massive lesbian), Tyzias, Mallek, Galekh, Marvus, Daraya, Nihkee, and Lanque. Marvus, Nihkee, and Lanque stood out especially because they all embodied something critically Homestuck that was largely absent from other routes: weirdness. Good old weirdness. Specifically good meta weirdness. This was best executed in the Marvus route in a manner highly evocative of the parts that I adored about the Epilogues regarding canonicity on top of being genuinely the best written route at a prose level. Lanque’s route, which I believe was written by the same person, was also wonderfully executed and genuinely hilarious if you assume it was crafted with the best intentions given the joke it makes out of the reader if you express discomfort/disinterest in the NSFW route. The NSFW route is a genuinely incisive depiction of a predatory man who, upon later revealing his true colors, casts a glare of dubious consent over your entanglement when he flagrantly ditches. Not to mention the overtones of him potentially drugging you before you protested taking the pills he bought in front of you. The ending epilogue was also of particular interest to me with the reveal that it was my dear old nefarious friend Doc Scratch behind it all who had the audacity to tell you to read a brief webcomic and leave you at a computer that opens up the first page of Homestuck. Well played. Lucky for Doc Scratch, I had every intention of re-reading the comic again immediately after I finished all the games.

 Speaking of which, I finally played Pesterquest. I was glad that it was a direct continuation of the Friendsim epilogue taking place immediately after you (the player character/MSPA Reader) read all of Homestuck including the Epilogues and became pissed over the lack of resolution had given that the Epilogues were always intended to Not be Actual Proper Epilogues and instead a bridge into Homestuck: Beyond Canon. Your character laments the lack of resolution and runs off only to discover the same strange white house panel that John stuck his hand through to get his retcon powers. Naturally, you proceed to do the same, leading you to acquire the same retcon powers as you travel to meet John on that fateful 13th birthday where it all began. I liked right away that in one of John’s routes the Epilogues were directly referenced when you take John back in time a week and witness the scene where all the god tier kids converge in John’s backyard before they take off to face Lord English in the Meat route of the Epilogues. Things then get progressively weirder from there over the routes. Good weird! Weird that is quintessentially Homestuck and felt more Right than all the other games in terms of Homestuck-ness outside of even rarer moments of metatextual dabbling until the ending. It felt like Homestuck (rather perhaps late era to Epilogues era Homestuck) for reasons even beyond the fact that there were canonical comic characters included in it even if they were engaged in dubiously canon activities. I was rather pleased with how it all ended. Partly because, even over the course of writing this lengthy article of which the game sections have been written in real time as I played the games, I’ve grown more and more fond of the Epilogues and, to a lesser extent, Homestuck: Beyond Canon the more I’ve thought about them. I ultimately (heh) had to confront this increased fondness with the ridiculous level of giddiness I felt when Ultimate Dirk from Beyond Canon showed up in Dirk’s route and started engaging in his signature brand of fuckery. Not to mention how wicked his theme is! I know now it’s actually from Homestuck Vol. 10, but I’d never actually heard it until now and currently have it on loop as I write these words. I really need to go back and listen through as many of the albums as I can. At the very end of the Afterw@rd I genuinely chuckled when refusal to retcon the timeline led to the game closing out. The true ending itself was fairly sweet and satisfying with very interesting implications about the Green Sun. As for writing and characterization, characters were written fairly accurately and with more or less their classic strong voices. I did not at any point feel like I was reading offkey fanfiction, it all felt par for the course. Granted, I didn’t go through any route with a fine toothed comb before making any assessments and I am running off an understanding of Homestuck wherein it was devoured in two separate chunks months apart that lasted only a month for one and two weeks for the other. Perhaps the only moments that felt off were pertaining to Vriska going too hard on the “Vriska did nothing wrong” gag in a way that wasn’t precisely the Vriska style. Vriska defending herself at length is certainly in character, but something about the manner at which she did in Pesterquest felt a bit too on the nose even for Vriska. On a much pettier note, whilst I embrace the depiction of Terezi as short and stocky wholeheartedly for it perfectly matches my vision, I resent the (albeit popular) depiction of a short Nepeta. I see her as average height, bordering on tall. Another petty concern is the few meme references that date the entire game. Not that I loathe meme references entirely (The Locked Tomb series wouldn’t be among my favorite books if I did), but they run the risk of aging poorly and feeling more akin to those inaccurate quote blogs you see on Tumblr for every fandom under the sun. It also feels like plain inaccurate characterization for the characters to quote certain memes more or less verbatim and the most jarring instances (mayhaps only instances, I’m unsure) occurred with Sollux (who explicitly says he was quoting a meme - the “...what the fuck is a [blank]? bitch, I’ll kill you”) and Aradia (who quotes the “are you tired of being nice? don’t you just want to go ape shit?” meme). Two memes that, while moderately funny, are far from iconic enough to warrant references, but who am I to judge. The more that I think about it, while characterization was relatively fine, I took umbrage with Feferi’s route containing a disappointing lack of Feferi which is a real shame because this was a gilded opportunity to get in some much needed Feferi screentime given how little she has in all of Homestuck. Things were more happening to her and her route felt less about her while being generally confusing. In the end, my favorite routes were Aradia, Dirk, Jade, Vriska, and (surprisingly) Tavros. The Tavros route mostly endeared itself to me by virtue of the sweet friendship writing between Tavros and Kanaya when she comes to help make his hive more accessible through whatever means necessary.

 So what are my thoughts on the games overall? Were they worth experiencing and the money I paid for them (with exception of Act 1 which I got through my father having backed the ancient kickstarter despite knowing nothing about Homestuck - truly bizarre)? I thought they were nice. Ideally it would have been more worthwhile of an experience had I waited for a sale to purchase the games, but I was too achingly eager to capitalize on my Homestuck fervor and write this indulgent article ahead of Plans that were in motion. My favorite of these games was surprisingly Pesterquest. It was a much smoother experience I devoured in a short period of time compared to the Friendsims and got to tell more coherent narratives than the Hiveswap games. As quaint as Hiveswap was, I suspect that the visual novels will have a longer lasting impact on me by virtue of the fact that they are tugging at my pre-existing temptation to make a visual novel of some kind. Potentially about a fantroll as a form of practice before diving into a more complex original game. I think the games were interesting expansions of the Homestuck universe and story itself with the ways they were connected to one-another. Perhaps, much like with the Epilogues, the more thought I give to them the fonder I might grow over time. Though I admit my ability to be all that fond of Hiveswap is limited by doubts about it ever being finished in a remotely timely manner.

 And somewhere in the middle of all that I read most of Problem Sleuth and didn’t care for it. But this is a Homestuck article, not a Problem Sleuth article!

 Homestuck, as a media object, is deeply flawed in myriad (mostly) beautiful ways, a true phenomenon that I doubt will ever be replicated in any vaguely similar fashion. If only for the reason that the physical acts of creating Homestuck in its early days was an exercise in self-destruction as no person should commit themself to the level of creative production in the timeframe that Andrew Hussie did. Homestuck is a deeply influential part of my life, one that I would never want to rid myself of even if the part of me that still cringes a little yet lives inside me against all my extermination efforts. I will never stop loving Homestuck and being inspired by it. No other piece of media has had this level of inspirational effect on me to drive me to create in its name or devote so much energy to it. I would not have been able to create over 75 fan characters for anything else (except perhaps Vampire: The Masquerade, but let it be known that a sizable chunk of my characters for that game are essentially alternate universe versions of my fantrolls). Even in the year 2024, I remain so inextricably entangled in this piece of media that I am continuing to flesh out my fantrolls as I embark upon a personal project to write a fully fledged fanfiction chronicling the events of their session to take a break from working on my novels. Also, startlingly, I am starting a Homestuck podcast with my dear friend Ian whomst I met through their Homestuck-loving fiance. This podcast will essentially function as a two-person book club wherein we discuss the comic as we make our way through set chunks for as long as either of us can stomach doing it. I’ve never made a podcast before and this is a natural evolution in my development along the path towards the ultimate dream of being someone’s Cringe Ass Boyfriend. As soon as the podcast is released I will link its website here to provide my eventual more detailed section by section thoughts on the comic.

 I will forever be grateful for Homestuck, without it I would be an entirely different person perhaps with entirely different interests and social circles (who knows if I would have turned out to be the goth lesbian psychology graduate I am were it not for Rose Lalonde). I will be grateful to have lived through it at such a pivotal moment in internet and fandom history. Because of this I will no longer allow myself to be shackled by the cringe that often accompanies discussion of Homestuck which saddens me even when it's presented in a familiarly lampshaded manner that I would always preface my mentioning of it in the past. If anything, it’s admirable to still be invested in Homestuck with its dwindling fanbase as you are keeping a culture alive and, ideally, in much healthier form than the issues of the fandom’s peak slathered in a legacy of unsealed body paint. No longer will I let this fall by the wayside to the extent that I concealed this major part of my creative life from past partners and irl friends. If this means being permanently branded “The Homestuck Friend” by my peers, then so be it. Homestuck brought and continues to bring me joy in multitudes. It made me who I am today as the source of the trolls species I am oh-so fond of and the origin of Rose Lalonde (who I am knitting projects away from essentially being an older non-Sburb version of). It made me cross the long held line that I would never make a podcast lest I succumb to a certain class of guy territory. But if I were to be a podcasting guy, what better thing to make a podcast on than something so awfully niche and waning like Homestuck?

 If you reached the end of this long rambling blog article, thank you for joining me on this disorganized, impassioned journey through something that means so much to me. I lament that I failed to continue to take proper notes during my reread of the main comic as I only conceived of writing this article after I was mired in the bowels of the Epilogues and had neglected to write out my thoughts until then. My comic itself reflections, on top of already having occurred in bursts nearly ten months apart, are lacking as a result. However, this time around as I re-read for podcast purposes you can expect that I will take more thorough notes that I might be able to concisely share in a future article who knows how far down the line. There’s no way of telling whether or not this project will stick for I’ve never done a podcast before nor have I committed to a project nearly as long term. I’m excited nonetheless!