HOW TO CONSUME HOMESTUCK:
yes the title is a reference to the epilogues and also a funny title to draw you to read this :3
I'm making this for my friend @1a-lchemist who’s speeding through Homestuck rn but feel free to share this to anyone who’s confused about it! <3
SO. YOU WANT TO GET INTO HOMESTUCK. But there’s A LOT of stuff. where do you start?
1. Well the first step is to read the original comic at homestuck.com! It has acts 1-7 that tell the main story of Homestuck, the alpha timeline so to say. It’s quite fucking long. (Completed.)
If you’re looking for a way to get through all these pages that is a bit less laborious and also doesnt make you read over 800,000 words and instead voice acts them, here’s a youtube playlist by Voxus for Let’s Read: Homestuck. (They’re about halfway through the comic at the time of my writing this, up to Act 6 Intermission 3.)
So, you’ve gotten through the main part of Homestuck (or chosen a part to hop off at and immerse yourself in fanwork instead) First of all, clap to yourself for a bit, that was a LOT you just got thru. Dang. It took me about 2 years on and off i think.
What now? Homestuck ended in 2016 but there’s a lot of other content you can’t parse, plus people have many differing and confusing opinions on them??
So this is where shit gets a tiny bit whack. If you've paid close attention to the main HS comic, you’ll see it puts a lot of emphasis on meta-story elements, and the “canonicity” of timelines and events. Tf does that mean? I myself am in the opinion that Canon is what you make of it, you can take any version of characters and events and read/make stories about them. You have the freedom to do ANYTHING, and this is supported by the creator Hussie as well! Just go wild.
If you want some additional content to the main Homestuck cast, of Dubiously Canon variety, there are the Paradox Space comics on hs.hiveswap.com/paradoxspace that showcase comics by fan creators. (Currently completed/discontinued to my knowledge.)
But! if you want some more content that is in some way or another related to Hussie himself, here are the stuff he has been directly involved in:
2. The Homestuck Epilogues right on the homestuck.com site. They are well, 2 branching epilogues to the main comic, presented in the form of text-only fanfiction. They are (only some of) the 2 possible ways the canon could continue on Earth C. (Completed.) The content itself is at points a few degrees darker than the og comic, so make sure the tags are okay with you.
Now the epilogues are a bit of a can of worms in the fandom, you might have heard about how they’re absolutely horrible, not worth reading at all. It is very clearly stated by Hussie and the work itself that it’s Dubiously Canon and as i said before, i follow the mindset of “fuck canon” so like, feel free to just ignore them and care about the story and characters in any way you want. But i personally love them as possible expansions to the story and characters just like any fanfic universe i read.
If reading all of that isn’t very appealing, you can also look through the recap at homestuck2.com/recap, since you should know at least the basics for the next work:
3. Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon at homestuck2.com. This follows right after the 2 branches sprouted by the epilogues, now again in the classic homestuck style of panels and pesterlogs. Many thunks and hmms about what ARE stories and what IS canon, all that good shit. (Ongoing.)
Then! The games!!!
They are behind a slight paywall, But there are definitely playthroughs on youtube. I haven’t really watched them myself but hopefully ppl in the replies/reblogs can provide some links to their fave playthroughs :3
4. First, there’s Hiveswap Act 1 (for now). Everything about it can be accessed at hiveswap.com/. It’s a point and click game that follows Joey, daughter of a version of Jake, into an adventure on Alternia. Retaining the fun humour of Homestuck and taking us into a refrence-filled world. (Act 1 completed, Act 2 in the works.)
5. Then, Hiveswap Friendsim, currently seemingly not connected to Hiveswap, just taking place in the same iteration of Alternia. You are the protagonist, it is You, and you get to befriend some new wacky trolls through the magic of visual novel choices. (Completed.)
These 2 can be played in any order for now, but the Friendsim trolls should show up in the upcoming Hiveswap Act 2, so playing it before Act 2 is beneficial for yar story experiencé.
6. Pesterquest on Steam. You are still the protagonist, carried over from Friendsim with amnesia, you are able befriend 8 kids and 12 trolls you might have met before... (Completed.)
Hiveswap and Friendsim are self-contained within the og Homestuck story, but Pesterquest has a reference to the epilogues in the last route which might cause confusion for non-epilogue readers.
So..... what else? You said something about fanworks and how “Canon isn’t really real”?
Well... you’ve C O N S U M E D most of “official” content or ignored it, now you can do absolutely whatever you want! Read/write fic, play/make games, look at/create fanart, do cosplay, roleplay, submerge your body in a grey sharpie bath to become One with the trolls(don’t actually do that.), make and read theories about this vast and complicated universe, plan a lyricstuck, read tv-tropes or the mspa wiki, anything! The Incipisphere is your oyster!
If you’re unsatisfied with how Homestuck itself ended and the epilogues are eehhhh, and want some more hs style humour and art, then feel free to check out some fanadventures on mspfa.com! Some i quite like myself are Act Omega and Act 8. You can also read endless Sburb sessions with fantrolls/fankids. There are SO many talented artists in this fandom i stg.
If you haven’t already and want some more Hussie weirdness, feel free to read the other stuff at homestuck.com like Problem Sleuth. Here’s some other stuff he’s done before becoming a world-roaming eboy.
Listen to official and fan music on Bandcamp. If you feel like taking a trip down the Homestuck video history, I just made a playlist for that. Read any kind of crossover with any other fandom. Boom. Pow. There’s so much stuff so if you want more you got it! These are just some examples in the small pool that is Homestuck Content TM.
Some pages that do a really good job of showcasing different fan content yo: homestuck.info and homestuck.net
And remember, you don’t have to have gotten through specific content to be considered a “real fan”. If you’ve seen pretty much every single thing on this list like me, or if you just like the programming shenanigans in Act 1 and decide to just think about that and John in his lil room, both are fucking great!! The epilogues are upsetting and the games cost money so it’s completely understandable to just read 1000 variations of meteorstuck davekat(again... like i do...) to get your homestuck fix. Don’t let anyone tell you you NEED to read or not read something.
I hope you have a good time and Homestuck becomes important to you like it did to me. Now, go, Explore! I love you! <3
(PSST. PLEAse add your favourite fanworks and other stuff in reblogs and replies, i’d love for this to become like a good source for cool homestuck stuff!)
