I'm rereading Homestuck! Act 6

[cinderlite]

Homestuck:

Once again, I have been awake since the obscene hours of the wee morning due to a nightmare. I got up, ate, responded to the roleplay, and immediately began re-reading of Homestuck.

I've only ever read it fully through once, but it was always due to my struggle with re-reading the very beginning of the comic. I don't overly enjoy the humor of it, so it just feels tedious to get through. My partner suggest that I start with act 6 instead for once, that since I've already read the comic through in its entirety, I don't have to read it from the beginning every time. I think that's a great idea! I'm already having a blast with it, liveblogging on my private server to make it easier to find key moments later on to refer back to them for roleplay purposes. It'll make a good refresher in the future!

Act 6 is the second to last act of Homestuck, but it's also the largest by far. It's bigger than all the other acts put together. From what I recall, Act 6 has six acts, and each of those acts have six acts as well! So it's going to be a good while before I finish the comic at the leisure pace I'm reading at. I read the entire thing in about 2 and 1/2 weeks the first time I read it, but I was reading it for 12+ hours a day every day during that time. I won't be doing that this time around. I'll be reading in between doing other things like roleplaying or chatting or going to doctor appts and stuff like that. It'll likely take a month or two, but I'm cool with that as long as I eventually get around to finishing it. I feel like, then, I'll re-read act 5. I read some of it in recent memory, but the end of it is a little fuzzy for me. It's also the act where the trolls come in, so I'm always thrilled to re-read that.

It's p impossible to read Homestuck like it was meant to be anymore, thanks to flash being retired and VIZ Media poorly taking over the site. Thank god for the Unofficial Homestuck Collection being made available to anyone who wants it for free. It's a custom web browser made to read Homestuck and other MS Paint Adventure comics. It not only allows flash, but has high-quality versions of all of it. There are accessibility options, all the official canon music (some of which were made by Toby Fox, creator of Undertale!), and a ton of other shit related to it. It's a labor of love, and it's wonderful. ♥

Homestuck really is unlike any fandom I've ever been in before. It used to be so absolutely massive that it changed the way fandoms and conventions in general worked. I doubt there will ever be a fandom like it again, but I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life loving it and indulging in it, with brief moment of hyperfixations with other fandoms in between. It's my pleasure!

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

Homestuck is such a strange, fascinating thing; there's nothing else entirely like it, for better or worse! What a great bunch of weird kids having weird adventures. Karkat's always been my favourite, but there are so many characters I enjoy. I'm slightly awed that you managed to read the entire thing in under three weeks.

[cinderlite]

You're so right! Homestuck is a phenomenon, an experience! I'm sad I missed getting into it when it was at it's peek, but I simply had never heard of it until 2016.

My favorite characters are definitely the Striders and Lalondes. I love most of the characters in Homestuck, but they were absolutely my favorite. As for the trolls, Karkat and Nepeta were some of my favorites! Sollux and Terezi are great too!

I literally dedicated my entire life to reading Homestuck back then. It helped that my job was at a call center that hardly got any calls at night. We were allowed to entertain ourselves, and I worked 12 hour shifts. It was literally all I did. I was absolutely obsessed, but also, I'm pretty proud that I managed to read so much as fast as I did, especially since I am not a fast reader.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm absolutely cracking up at your icon. Why does it exist? I don't know, but it's beautiful.

I love the Striders, the Lalondes and Nepeta as well; great taste! (My other favourites are John, Jade and Kanaya.) The shared Strider-Lalonde family trait of 'having sincere feelings but being allergic to expressing them' is a lot of fun.

[cinderlite]

HAHA, THANK YOU. I love that image. A Doritos bath screams the Striders, and when I first saw it, I was in love.

John and Jade are also great characters! (Speaking of John and the end of Homestuck, check this out (it's about a minute long). I think I want to like Kanaya more than I do, but she doesn't spark joy for me. I still like her with Rose though, they're a perfect couple -- and so good for each other, too. EXACTLY, you get it!! That's one of my favorite things about the Strilondes. ♥

[rionaleonhart]

A Doritos bath screams the Striders

It would never have occurred to me to put this specific combination of words together, and yet somehow you're absolutely right.

Oh, that's a cool little video; thank you for the link!

[cinderlite]

Haha, that is, in and of itself, the nature of Homestuck.

You're so welcome!! I hope you enjoyed it. It was angsty and included Bo Burnham, so it's some of my favorite things combined into one video!

[soggymulder]

that is so funny....i read homestuck way back when it was updating though i wasn't in the fandom at all. i never finished it because..... i liked the start so much more than the later parts LMAOOOOOO

thank you so much for that link tho i will be saving my own copy :)

[cinderlite]

You're so welcome!! Homestuck is great, actually, even though bits and pieces of it (namely the end) could stand to be better. I still love it a lot and on a reread it's fantastic. ♥ That's so fair, though! We all have our different preferences!!