WHAT IS "HOMESTUCK"

Ok, so if you're the kind of person to be scrolling through a neocities page in 2025 you're at probably least aware that Homestuck exists, but I'd still like to present a few words about it regardless.

Homestuck was written by Andrew Hussie, who over the course of 7 years produced 8000-ish pages of art and writing for the webcomic. It has garnered a specific kind of reputation due to the influence it had over the internet in the early-2010s (and beyond), which has shaped the way people interact with it even now. While it is a product of its time in a few unfortunate ways, I do wholeheartedly believe that it is a piece of fiction unlike anything made before it, which aimed to challenge the way we think about storytelling and the structures that define it altogether.

Tumblr user @plaidos gave a summary that I think does it justice:

"it's a deconstruction & meta commentary on the american coming-of-age narrative through the lens of bat-tling/overcoming sexual & gendered repression, told as a multimedia webcomic hypertext in the form of an epistolary space opera"

MY INITIAL READ

While I knew vaguely of Homestuck from my time on the internet in the early 2010s, I was never in a place where I felt compelled to actively seek it out. This meant that when I decided to read it in 2022, I got to do so without interacting with any fan communities, and with the perspective of an adult.

I do really think this was key to me understanding the webcomic in the way that I did - even 3 years on, I'm incredibly impressed with the way that Hussie decided to format and present the story. While the MSPA artstyle itself might not click with some people, I adore the simplicity of the style, as well as any offshoots of it that reguarly pop up due to the freeform, loose compliance that the characters and world require to be properly represented.

And while I'm fond of the art and animation present in the story, I'm enamoured most with Hussie's deconstruction of Narrative itself, and how they choose to explore their understanding of it in their work here. This is present throughout the whole text, from the way she treats the structure of the story, the characters in it, and especially the ever-expanding scope it struggles to contain.

There's also a lot about gender and 4chan redditors being infected by the woke transgender mind virus but that's a discussion I can have in another textbox.

NARRATIVE GROWTH, NONLINEARITY, AND SCOPE

Homestuck is a work that is constantly growing and evolving - and the way that it does this is integral to the way it tells its story. As a story that focuses on growing up as a parallel to the typical "hero's journey" in the most simple of ways, Hussie elects to show the progression of the narrative not via travelling down a linear line, but with the expansion of the story itself; we don't watch the story travel from A to B, we witness it grow in size until what once was A, now resembles B.

And even that description doesn't really do the structure justice, with all the in-story timetravel, the out-of-story back-and-forth jumping between different times, places, and even universes sometimes even just for a punchline.

One of the reasons I feel this works so well with the themes of the story is, at a ground level, how that ever-growing scope ties into the coming-of-age narrative. A character is introduced at the start of the story with various interests: the shows they like, the instrument they play; they are defined by what they choose to interact with and surround themselves with.

Your name is ROSE. As was previously mentioned you are without ELECTRICITY, although your LAPTOP COMPUTER still functions on BATTERY POWER. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. You enjoy creative writing and are SOMEWHAT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT. You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS. You also like to KNIT, and your room is a BIT OF A MESS. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.

In a more typical story, these elements would be used as concrete ways of establishing the personality and goals of each person, explaining to the reader who they are - and maybe a writer would keep a few of these beats as setup for dramatic emotional moments later in the story.

While Hussie does keep note of a few specific items, much of the "personality" that is established from these kinds of character panels is left behind as the story grows. While I'm not sure how intended this was (due to Homestuck's nature of constant evolution and refusal to follow a normative structure), it feeds into that aformentioned theme of growing up in a mildly subtle way that I'm very fond of. Rose does not play the violin later in the story to complete a story beat, she doesn't have to use the skills she's built up in knitting for any relevant moments, etc. The characters themselves, regardless of any "arcs", don't have the chance to hold onto these ideas of themselves anymore; the stakes of the "game" are changing, and they must shift their priorities in order to keep playing it.

ROSE: Should I...
ROSE: Should I really work on completing my personal planetary quest?
ROSE: That whole thing where I learn to "play the rain?"
ROSE: I guess I should feel exhilarated to have the chance again after all these years.
ROSE: Of course I should.
ROSE: But then,
ROSE: Why does it sound like such a drag?
ROSE: I haven't played the violin in a long time.
ROSE: I wonder if I even remember how.
ROSE: Honestly I can't recall ever feeling less motivated to satisfy a looming obligation.
ROSE: I think my quest was fundamentally bound to the nature of this land, which was customized to the profile, needs, and potential for growth of a thirteen year-old girl.
ROSE: But I'm not that person anymore.
ROSE: What if I
ROSE: What if I just
ROSE: Didn't bother doing it?
ROSE: Like, ever?
ROSE: Would anyone notice my dereliction?

- pg.6408

PUZZLE PIECES, REPETITION, AND ARCHETYPES

Repetition is one of Homestuck's core tools. It works with this concept in a very simple way: establish a situation, setup a joke, or introduce a concept. Then, bring it back. Then, bring it back again. Maybe twist one of those revisions very slightly. Maybe mix up two of them? Or three?

This is one of the things that ties a lot of elements (both big and small) in the story together. Hussie uses this to establish characters - maybe take 50% of this person, and 50% of another, and see what kind of outcome we get from that? Things such as real Mark Twain quotes, staircases, and other bits are often set up, and then face continued repetition throughout the story. Sometimes their initial appearance is even recontextualised in the face of whatever direction the narrative itself has taken.

"Maybe I'll come back to the issue of why Sollux is reminiscent of Dave later. I feel like there's more to say there. It touches on a broader issue of personality construction in Homestuck overall, which utilizes certain traits as almost elemental, platonic psychological and behavioral forms to build more extensive and widely varied profile composites. It's an approach that resonates with the rest of Homestuck's governing principles involving simple platonic concepts giving rise to greater complexity and chaos."

- Andrew Hussie, Homestuck Author Commentary pg.2081

HOMESTUCK AND (GENDER) ROLES

I could start this off with a long paragraph about how Homestuck is an autobiography about gender and transitioning but that's been done enough times by many people who are more verbose than I. And while analysing Hussie's use of destined roles in fiction has Also been done to death, it's still a topic I want to touch on briefly.

There's a lot of "quests", or potential outcomes that Homestuck presents to its audience, wherein a character is supposedly "destined" to complete a certain task; to fufill their "designated role". Rose is told that to fully realize her own potential, she must "play the rain". Dave is meant to be the hero with the power to defeat the Big Bad at the end of the story.

Dave responds to this by (accidentally or on purpose) breaking every sword he gets his hands on, and dies when attempting to embrace this narrative purpose and "Be A Hero". Rose responds to this by blowing up a planet. These are good things.

"The real conflict in her arc comes not from the fact that she refuses to take it seriously, by destroying it and taking shortcuts. It's the opposite. It's that, upon trashing her planet, she continues to have this nagging sense that she should be taking this quest seriously, much like how a young adult may have a nagging sense of guilt that they aren't "being an adult right" by the time they approach adulthood. And this nagging, unanswerable guilt arises from the truth that the regimentation of adulthood is completely fake. It was always a mirage. Learning this, making peace with it, is part of the growing process for many, and it is for her too."

- Andrew Hussie, Homestuck Author Commentary pg.2690