I noticed the conspicuous absence of a certain gargantuan webcomic in the set of threads already available so here I am to plug that gap.
What is Homestuck?
Homestuck is a webcomic written by Andrew Hussie which began in 2009 and ended 8129 pages later in 2016. It tells the story of a group of kids who play a game and must go through personal journeys to defeat a great evil and save the universe. As the story goes on, they make new friends, learn new things about themselves, and grow up to embrace their own individual destinies. Homestuck itself is told through a series of text logs (referred to as pesterlogs), panel images, panel gifs, flash animations (on soundpages, marked by the prefix [S]), and flash games. Since 2016, there have been multiple authorised fan-lead dubiously canon continuations, those being the prose-based Homestuck Epilogues which lead into the comic Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon (later Homestuck: Beyond Canon after a shift in creative team). There is also now an animated series based on the webcomic, produced by studio Spindleroo, awaiting greenlight whose pilot has been released on YouTube (though I would not recommend it to people new to the comic). Also in existence are several games which act as supplemental narratives and continuations of storylines, those being Hiveswap Acts 1, 2, and soon 3, as well as visual novels Hiveswap Friendsim and Pesterquest.
How do I read it then?
Since the discontinuation of Adobe Flash in 2021, the main Homestuck website stood as largely non-functional. This left the fan-made Unofficial Homestuck Collection as the only way to properly read Homestuck for quite a while, and it still remains the best way to read it. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection (henceforth referred to as the UHC) takes the form of a browser application which, upon having the assets folder correctly deposited into its files, allows the reading of Homestuck and other webcomics written by Andrew Hussie with full flash functionality. Recently, the website went through a rerelease of Homestuck, restoring full functionality of every page and allowing it to be more easily read once more. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection can be found at https://homestuck.github.io/ and the official website can be found at https://homestuck.com.
Content Warnings
(adapted from https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/1bgnhgs/comment/kv8moyk/)
Content warnings for Homestuck include: potential epilepsy-triggering flashing lights, blood, violence including amputation, bludgeoning to death, deadly impalement, and decapitation, clowns, brainwashing/mental possession, sexually explicit furry bara art in the background of like ten pages, brief black-and-white nudity, swearing, the R-slur, a joke about an acronym organically forming the F-slur, child abuse, discussed child abuse and homophobia, mocking of the disabled (as an unsympathetic action), cartoonish levels of sexism (as an unsympathetic action), statements that an antagonist is analogous to Hitler, mentions of genocide of alien species, alien subspecies, and the human species, offscreen mass extinction, mocking of otherkin, a minor character being a racial stereotype of Japanese people, a somewhat major character being a stereotype of Black people, minor characters being stereotypes of disabled people, a controversial and prominent depiction of blindness, eye trauma, underage alcoholism, an empty suicide by electrocution threat, an actual suicide by electrocution attempt, written depections of noncon facilitated by mind control (as an unsympathetic action), sexual assult (an unwanted and physically resisted kiss, as an unsympathetic action), jokes about pedophilia, and child grooming (textually 100% non-sexual, but sexually-coded).
Would I like Homestuck?
Whilst it may be a daunting prospect, I would indeed recommend Homestuck to anyone who is already interested in it. The story makes liberal use of metatextual storytelling, wordplay and fourth wall breaks to tell its narrative, which leads to a very distinct style of humour. Doctor Who stories who relate the most to its concepts may include The Mind Robber, A Death In The Family, The Fourth Wall, Love and Monsters, Enlightenment, and Blink.
I hope this thread can lead to good, intelligent discussion of Homestuck as well as encouraging people who may have been on the fence to check it out. Thank you for bearing with me through this post and I hope you have a nice day. :)
