Homestuck

Upon reading the title of this post, it is likely that you had one of three reactions:

1. What?
2. You read Homestuck too?  Awesome!  I can't wait to read this post!
3. Oh god no.

Depending on which reaction you had, I can probably determine the following about you:

1. You haven't heard of Homestuck.  You probably don't spend a lot of time on Tumblr or other fandom-related internet sites, and probably don't have a lot of friends who do.
2. You've read at least some of Homestuck, are a fan, and will enjoy this post because of that perspective on it.
3. You've heard of Homestuck but haven't read [much of] it.  You probably spend time on Tumblr, on other fandom-heavy sites, or around a friend who likes Homestuck.  Perhaps you read part of Act 1 but couldn't get into it.  It either bores you or scares you.  Or maybe that's the fandom that scares you.

Allow me to explain.

Homestuck is a webcomic, one of four on the website mspaintadventures.com.  It is by far the longest, and is much more controlled by the creator, Andrew Hussie, than the others.

The MS Paint Adventures page summarizes Homestuck as "A boy and his friends and a game they play together."  This is a gross oversimplification of the entire thing, but I will use it as a starting point.

The boy in this sentence is John Egbert, 13 years old at the beginning of the comic.  His friends at the beginning of the comic are three in number and also 13 in age: Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley.    The game in question is Sburb, an immersive reality simulation game for multiple players.

Sburb is basically the point of the whole comic, so I will explain it a bit more.  Skip this bit if you aren't too interested in the comic.  I'll tell you where to rejoin.

Sburb allows players to physically manipulate the real world through the medium of a computer interface; a server player can move things in a client player's house by clicking and moving the object on the screen.  The game brings about the end of the world by summoning meteors that crash into Earth, including into the players' homes.  The only way to avoid death by meteor is to create and interact with an item that brings the player's house and everyone and -thing into the world of the game, called The Incipisphere.  There is a slightly different Incipisphere for every group of players.

Sburb is a multi-player game by nature.  Each player is server and client, in a chain.  Rose is John's server player, Dave is Rose's server player, Jade is Dave's server player and John is Jade's server player.  (This is introduced far more gradually in the comic and is therefore much easier to understand there).  The interdependence in the game is furthered by The Battlefield's gaining complexity.  Nothing happens unless at least two players join the game.

*[Didn't care to read? Join back in here]*

Basically, Sburb is an extremely high-stakes video game that takes place in its own galaxy that players get teleported into.

It brings about the end of the world.

It also brings about a new one.

The goals of the game are:

• Reach Skaia by alchemizing and building until entering the seventh gate.
• Defeat your planet's denizen, an extremely dangerous monster.
• Reach Godtier, an elite tier of levels that gives special powers based on the player's personality.
• Breed the Genesis frog, which creates a new universe.

Yes, that’s right.  A new universe.  There is a plurality of universes in Homestuck.  And in the most famous aspect of the comic, the players whose Sburb (well, Sgrub to them) session produced our universe live in an alternate universe, on a planet called Alternia. 

The Alternians, more commonly known as Trolls, are very similar to humans in many respects; they are humanoid with grey skin, orange and yellow horns, and yellow eyes.  They wear black t-shirts with a zodiac sign in their blood color.  

There are twelve blood colors on Alternia, which create corresponding castes of their society.  Low bloods are rust, bronze, and gold; mid-bloods are greens and blues; high bloods are blues and purples.  Fuschia is the color of the highest class, consisting of two trolls: the empress and her heiress.  The trolls type in their blood color and each have a typing quirk that identifies them.

hell0 my name is aradia and everything is pointless

uM, hI MY NAME IS tAVROS.  i, uH, tHINK MAYBE THAT’S NOT TRUE,

‘2up lo2er2 my name ii2 2ollux and ii have a lii2p.

MY NAME IS KARKAT AND I HAVE MUTANT BLOOD SO I TYPE IN GREY TO HIDE IT.

:33 < *tacklepounce!* my name is nepeta and i love cats!

Hello Humans My Name Is Kanaya And I Am The Only Sane Troll.

MY N4M3 1S T3R3Z1 4ND 1 TYP3 L1K3 TH1S 1’M BL1ND

Hey I’m Vriska and I am 8l8antly evil ::::D

D --> I am Equius and I am e%tremely STRONG.

HeLlO bRo ThIs Is GaMzEe

wwhatevver, my name’s eridan and i’m a hipster

)(ello I’m Feferi and I G-ET R-EALLY --EXCIT--ED ----EASILY!

The trolls can communicate with the humans using a chat client that lets them chat at any point on the kids’ timelines, leading to awkward non-linear conversations.  At first the kids think they are trolls in the internet sense of the word, and ignore them.

If you’ve spent much time on the internet you’ve probably seen a Homestuck troll in some form or another.

Thanks to complicated ectobiology, and a reset function that resets the game and the universe, there is another set of twelve trolls and four humans, and all of the involved members of each species are mutual mixed clones of each other, but that’s far enough in the plot (and complicated enough) that I don’t really need to go into that.

This is a fan art of the eight humans. Top row, left to right: John, Jane, Rose, Roxy, Jade, Jake, Dave, and Dirk.  The four with black hair are all clones of each other, and the four with blonde hair are all clones of each other, as demonstrated by the following diagram of the four with blonde hair.

So basically, they're all just different combinations of the same four half-sets of genes.  Confusing? Yes.

Don't even talk about the other set of twelve trolls.  I'm just not going there.

So what’s all the fuss about?  After all, this is just some comic online about a bunch of kids and aliens who play a video game.  What’s so special about it?

Many things. 

For one, Homestuck is produced in a medium almost completely unprecedented: each panel is fairly large, has its own page on the site, and sometimes is animated.  Occasionally, flash movies and games appear, making Homestuck quite a mixed medium. 

Another thing that makes it so special is that it is influenced by the fans in a way few other comics are.  Andrew Hussie has stated that he takes much of his inspiration from the fan works out there – and there are many.  Fans of Homestuck have expressed their love for the comic in writing, music, and art based on its characters and world.  There is an entire Bandcamp page dedicated to Homestuck music, much of which is fan-created; many fans create a fantroll character with its own symbol and horn shape; Homestuck fanfiction in varying degrees of quality clogs fanfiction websites.

What scares many prospective readers is the shipping.  If you don’t know what shipping is, basically it’s when a fan wants two characters to be together romantically.

Troll romance comes in four forms: what we think of as “romance,” [matespritship], plus a sort of passionate rivalry [kismesissitude], a romance that is more involved in emotional stability than procreation [moiraillegiance], and a mediating role that involves a third person stabilizing two people in a passionate rivalry [auspisticism].  The four are represented by the four card suits, as shown below.

Having a relationship in one of these “quadrants” does not keep a troll from having one in another, and many prospective fans dislike this and the hate-romance aspect.  But mostly prospective fans are scared by what fans do with these new possibilities in shipping.

So here I repeat: you do not have to be part of the Homestuck Fandom to be a Homestuck fan.  Nor do a few crazy fans represent a whole fandom.

In fact, the Homestuck fandom is one of the most creative out there.  They are renowned for their speed in making costumes related to the comic.

This outfit first appeared in the comic on a Saturday morning.  The next day, this person showed up at a convention wearing it.  Homestucks are the fastest cosplayers alive.

So in short: Homestuck is a little scary, but it's fantastically creative, fan-influenced, thoughtful, funny, groundbreaking, and generally awesome.  You should read it.

Started reading it, but got confused? Any questions concerning Homestuck? Comment below! I'll be happy to put any confusion to rest.