fix the weird fucker i was born to die as

Cyborg771 has started making their archive, describing their work as ‘an offline application that will allow a person to read Homestuck while offline. It's also built to be an easier way to navigate and will also hopefully be able to incorporate some additional features […] Changing themes (Pesterchum for Kids, Trollian for Trolls, Velvet for intermission/Doc Scratch), Music on still pages (Rex Duodecim Angelus anyone?), Commentary nodes (A button you can click on some pages to provide commentary from Andrew.’ They also say ‘The point of this project was to find a way to distribute Homestuck once it's done since a book won't really ever do it justice.’

Other forum users are VERY on board, and there are two main discussions happening in this thread. One is technical affordances and limitations – Flash is the hardest thing to implement but widely agreed to be the most important, and Cyborg771 is realizing how cobbled-together some of the Flash pages are, especially the complex interactive ones. Arrow keys to tab between pages have already been implemented, which will really ease navigation – but some people would like to see a more traditional command line in place of the hyperlinks, to make Homestuck look like a game instead of a website. There are requests for mobile functionality, which would make certain aspects like the interactive walkarounds even MORE challenging, but distribution for the ‘standard’ version would likely happen via DVD or flash drive.

The other discussion is, of course, copyright. Cyborg771 makes it clear that their work wouldn’t be available to others without Hussie’s permission, and that the eventual idea would be for Hussie to sell it themself. In a previous but non-archived thread titled ‘Downloadable Archive’, art team member and forums moderator Tynic had this to say against rehosting and archiving:

.. because it's piracy? Looking at the webcomic on its original page means it is displayed alongside all the ads and links to merchandise and whathaveyou. These things are how andrew makes a living off MSPA. Rehosting the entire comic out of context actively takes money from andrew and whatpumpkin, and moreover represents an illicit use of IP, since andrew has retained distribution rights for the comic. So to sum up: it would be both illegal, and a nasty way to treat the creator of a comic you presumably enjoy. That's why not. Honestly, even creating an offline archive without express permission is a bit iffy, although I doubt andrew cares. He/we can turn a blind eye to very minor distribution of such an archive, since in cases like the original post in this thread it's really more like advertising, but any sort of publicly available downloadable archive would definitely fall outside fair use laws.

While Cyborg771 is the first person to attempt this for general use, a different MSPA Forums user, Pbhead, made a smaller scale version of this for a friend and posted their work on 12 May 2011. It’s entirely offline, loading in-browser via local files. It appears to support Flash, and also contains Problem Sleuth, Bard Quest and Jailbreak, as well as any YouTube videos linked to within the comic. Pbhead has made a demo video showcasing their work, which can be seen here, and provides a great insight into one of the first Homestuck preservation efforts.

So that’s three separate threads on the official forums that are definitely about this topic. Around the same time, there’s also a thread called ‘The MSPA Future-Proofing Project’, although this one is also not archived so I don’t know how similar this project is to the others.

But this discussion isn’t only happening on the official forums. Sparked by an insider softlaunching that there will be Homestuck books coming out, users on Something Awful in late May are having an interesting discussion about not only the technology and legality/ethics of a downloadable archive, but also whether it’d need to include content from outside Homestuck itself. Here’s a few posts from a discussion on 20 May 2011, in chronological order.

flavor.flv:

I don't think there is any way to archive homestuck. Even going back and reading through the old updates on your computer will not capture the experience, since it won't have the context that makes it such a postmodern clusterfuck. Sweet bro and hella jeff, new album releases, formspring answers, even forum drama all contribute to the narrative.

FutureSushi:

You know for a fact that some crazy fan will scour the archives of twitter, formspring, the forums and sbahj and line everything up on a super narrative archive that will then be downloadable. Do you realize what fandom you're dealing with??

QueerPope:

Guys, the best way to finally archive Homestuck is just a .zip full of html files. […] While the albums and the wait between panels and the forum drama and the formspring all add to the experience, they aren't essential. And in 50 years people aren't going to care. The best you can do is store it an offline, but still digital, format. Maybe include an extra html file containing a "The best of Hussie's formspring" or something that contains extracannonical material. The albums have great music but anything they add to the plot is actually non-canon until the song get's used in the comic. Otherwise it's just a record label to publish fan-music. And while the forum drama may have resulted in Gamzee's name, I doubt it really adds much to the experience.

Fister Roboto:

The thing about Homestuck is that in order to fully appreciate it, you need to at least be aware of the greater Hussie canon, including Problem Sleuth, Whistles, the TNG edits, and Zoosmells.

And then another person jumps in with a similar offline archive idea to the folks on the MSPA forums, which they’ve come to independently.

Bobulus:

I was considering taking something like this, burning it to a DVD, and then putting it in a captchacard-shaped case for the ultimate in crazy fandom collectibles.

So, overall? Homestuck hasn’t finished yet, but people are deeply attached to it in a way that makes them want to have it forever. It’s possible that people are starting this work now because they want to have an archive ready for when the comic finishes, something there’s already some mild anxiety about. While it seems like books might be made soon, people generally agree that a book isn’t the best possible preservation method for the comic, and something digital is necessary. Opinions on Hussie are generally positive enough that people aren’t expecting them to take the MSPA site down, quit the comic, or otherwise compromise Homestuck’s long-term future, but there is a desire for fans to take the lead on this – whether that’s to save Hussie some work, to make an archive happen faster, because they personally have features they really want to see included, or another reason entirely.

The direct question being asked is ‘how can we archive Homestuck so that we can still read it in the future’, but the bigger question (and one I have a lot of personal interest in) is ‘what counts as reading Homestuck?’ If you just read the upcoming print books and don’t actually watch the Flashes or listen to the music, does that count? If you read a mobile port which embeds Let’s Plays in place of the interactive walkarounds, does that count? If you read Homestuck but don’t read Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, does that count? If you don’t engage with Hussie’s various commentary scattered around the internet, does that count? If you read it in a way Hussie would actively dislike (for example, one that denies them ad revenue), does that count? If you read the comic and its supplemental materials but never engage with the fandom, does that count? This idea of correct and incorrect ways to read the comic is behind all of these projects and discussions, and it’s REALLY fascinating.

Homestuck doesn’t have firm boundaries – it permeates into the outside world in ways that are hard to define, whether that’s linking to a google image search for Barbasol (p.1479), having its own forum that’s significantly more active than the comic itself, or sparking in-person musical performances, live readthroughs and projects where modified bunnies are mailed across the country from fan to fan for a year. And to someone who has been deeply involved with the fandom over the past year or two, their community experiences have to be inextricable from their experiences of the story itself.