Homestuck

[The Knife's Husbando]

Part of the reason why the Homestuck fandom is so shitty is because of the length of the story itself. 7698 pages ensures that only the obsessed and completely insane will read it fully. That isn't to say there aren't exceptions, but that makes up the vast majority of the fandom regardless.

*Cough* Schlock Mercenary *Cough*.

Fifteen years running a page a day as of last week, and still really good.

 

[Handsome Pete]

No, seriously, why the fuck do teenagers like it? There's nothing for them there. Out of curiosity I sat down and tried to read it. It's a dude in his 30s writing a story set in the present, filled with references to the trash culture of the 80s and 90s that defined his own childhood, but which most of the audience has never experienced.

As far as I can tell, it only took off because all the characters have symbols and colors associated with them, and autistic people love to make charts.

 

[BOLDYSPICY!]

moar liek homosuck amirite

who even likes that gay-ass shit

/cough

 

[Billy of Hills]

homestuck is gay

 

[Loxiozzz]

homestuck is gay

 

[Abethedemon]

Homestuck? More like Homes, ya suck.

 

[Trilby]

I still don't understand homestruck

I'm glad I never started on this at all!

No, seriously, why the fuck do teenagers like it? There's nothing for them there. Out of curiosity I sat down and tried to read it. It's a dude in his 30s writing a story set in the present, filled with references to the trash culture of the 80s and 90s that defined his own childhood, but which most of the audience has never experienced.

As far as I can tell, it only took off because all the characters have symbols and colors associated with them, and autistic people love to make charts.

Doesn't surprise me they would latch on to that detail.

 

[Fat Cat Represent]

I haven't read it in years, but it was a cool thing with an exceptionally shitty fanbase.

Also, I used to watch the cool little flash, music and animation bits while on Salvia. Good times sometimes, bad others.

 

[Abethedemon]

Real talk, I tried getting into homestuck once because my friend was into it (REALLY into it, as in cosplaying and the whole nine yards). While I liked the pseudo-video game aesthetic and the cosmic horror elements I really didn't like the art. It seemed too squishy and infantile for me. Maybe I should read Problem Sleuth instead.

 

[Motherboard]

I was into it when I was 12 or so. I've only met people through it that overanalyze everything and call it a work of art when honestly....it's complete and utter shit. People shouldn't take pride in a story that has an incoherent plot--that's just bad storytelling. And on top of that, the art and animation is utter shit.

Spoiler: Powerleveling...

I might be more biased though because a horrible abuser I met (I was 14 at the time) was addicted to HS and had 100 fantrolls, and still haunts me even though I ditched her finally at 16. Oh yeah and lmao, she was transtrender.

 

[AnOminous]

Something can be "art" and still totally suck. Like homosuck does.

 

[Y2K Baby]

Same.

Delete this thread, you fucking Aspie. WHY IS IT #1 TO POP UP AND NOTTHE ONE ACTUALLY RELEVANT
IS IT BECAUSE IT WAS MAED FIRST?
YEAH, uh, nice fucking priorities, dumbfuck.
This thread was also a stupid piece of fucking stupid shit and I HATE seeing it!!!

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

I like it. A great story. Cool setting, nice characters, lot' of fun stuff. Never interacted with the fanbase at large so never gained a dislike of them.

I think due to its nature, it was much diminished after it was completed. A large part of the appeal was it constantly hinting at larger and obfuscated mysteries, what was going on, how is this game working, what about these new characters?

While it was ongoing the result was you read it and became confused and mystified, then you went and either theorized with friends, read up on fan theories, or I suppose went to some fan forum and speculated with them. And then you read on, and each new reveal was fun and exciting. But now that it's finished what happens is you read it, you become confused and mystified, search up the wiki, read up on the basic gist of it, then go back and now you have to slog trough long rambling dialogue excepts to get to a place you already know about. Also with the size of it it's a lot easier to digest in daily or weekly updates.

Also the final act probably got to complicated so the ending was a bit weak. I remember there where large hiatuses in the final years or so of the comic.

I took a glance at the epilogue but it didn't really catch my interest and neither has the games.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

Homestuck seemed like a repository of faggottry (and not just the gay kind) so I resolved to avoid it like the plague. 8-bit Theater had pretty much slaked my thirst for ugly sprite comics at the time and it didn't have a cancerous fanbase to boot.

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

Homestuck seemed like a repository of faggottry (and not just the gay kind) so I resolved to avoid it like the plague. 8-bit Theater had pretty much slaked my thirst for ugly sprite comics at the time and it didn't have a cancerous fanbase to boot.

How did that go anyways? I remember 8 bit theater being the only funny sprite comic but I got distracted from it late (or halfway?) in the story. Did it stay good till the end?

Because Homestuck sure as hell didn't. Realtalk, it was a genuinely creative comic for about four acts, and reusing his own sprites made the output insanely fast and erratic yet regular. you'd sometimes refresh at 12am and end up with thirty new pages with full dialogue and full new art in half of em. And then you'd get like, one textlog the next day. If there were no pages at all for a bit it implied an animation was coming. Or even a short game. The text under the pictures would link to more shit too occasionally. I was very impressed at the time even if I thought Problem Sleuth and his old traditional webcomics were funnier. Nobody had done anything this weird with the medium yet besides his own previous MSPA works and this went even further. On top of that worldbuilding, story, and mystery kept you invested. Homestuck was a genuinely interesting universe at the time.

Then the fifth act happened. It wasn't immediately terrible, and it was supposed to be no longer than the fourth, but ballooned out of control as the fanbase simultaneously exploded due to inheriting the imploded hetalia axis powers tumblr fandom after they dressed up as nazis outside a holocaust museum. The story meandered and went in circles. There were still animations, but half the art was from fanartists who's styles clashed horribly. Over time he shifted from taking light jabs at the new fans (making an autistic catgirl shipper tertiary character, a long winded sjw tertiary character, etc) to writing specifically to please these people which ultimately lead us into the boring badly paced unfunny clusterfuck soap opera that was act 6. There were gradually less updates, and less shit actually happened. There were still animations, but half the art was from fanartists who's styles clashed horribly with the author's and each others', even if they weren't generic tumblr trash. Apparently that's when he was possibly first hiring ghost writers (one of his dumb friends I think) and for sure when he had his BPD girlfriend who lied about him being abusive and cheating on her when it was the opposite. That combined with his own waning passion and sense of hard work was a perfect storm of bullshit to ruin the comic and his creative output from then on. He probably made more money doing it this way since got fanbase was huge for a while. But I wonder if it was worth it. Was it still fun like it used to be?

I didn't even read the epilogue after how pointless and uneventful the ending was. I only read that far to see where the burning train finally wrecked, except it was less of a trainwreck and more like the train just stopped. Two pointlessly long animations where nothing happens except static pictures of fanart floating around the screen with flashing lights then suddenly the bad guys are dead, BAM the story is over roll credits.

According to the community watch thread there's an official sequel he let his friends and some remaining fans do. All you really need to know about it is that they made the lesbian space alien a muslim. That about sums it up I think. Also there's literal trigger warnings.

tl;dr:

 

[Vapewizard]

My main opinion of homestuck these days is something I also mentioned in another homestuck thread: I feel like you had to be there, specifically as a teenager, long before it was finished to actually enjoy it cause you'd get to shitpost and speculate and share fanart with the other teenagers while waiting for the new updates. It was fun waiting for Cascade with everyone back then and watch Newgrounds explode but if I went back to it these days I doubt I'd still enjoy it. Though for what it's worth I do still think it's impressive as a sprawling multimedia project cause it was pretty unique at the time as far as I know. Also I am definitely not touching the new SJW iteration cause fuck that.

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

happy 6/12 ya filthy animals

 

[Rakdos92]

What's the occassion?

 

[Valstrax]

What's the occassion?

Mass homicide?

 

[Rakdos92]

Mass homicide?

Oh yeah, the start of the other session.