a video about Homestuck

[@HBMmaster]

mspfa.com/?s=44741

[@cutecommie]

owo what's this?

[@aturchomicz821]

Wtf that wasnt just Video Editing Magic and this is somehow real? Wow :O

[@shengshu3510]

This is amazing Jan, thank you for your work of art

[@VeritasUnae]

oh this is fun

[@Seerinx]

w h a t

[@PrimMashups]

the fact that "misali votgil" is a valid troll name will haunt me for the rest of this week thank u

[@armageddongirl612]

it sounds like a real one too

[@iantaakalla8180]

And given the troll Kurode, who speaks in emojis, a troll whose typing quirk is votgil would definitely be likely. Kurode is a troll from what I assume is the now-abandoned Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon.

[@MarkusAldawn]

Also, LOJBAN is a valid planet name :(

[@michaelcarlton1484]

@@iantaakalla8180 I'm pretty sure they are working on it and plan on releasing the whole thing when it's done. (Also, it's not as bad as people say.)

[@purpleisdebeste]

Actually only MISALI VOTGIL is a valid troll name

[@viennaorange4122]

As a Homestuck Reader, the first 25 minutes of this video were glorious - I think jan Misali might seriously be the first notable Video Essayist to *actually discuss the narrative* and not just the fandom. It's so gratifying to finally see someone acknowledge the core conceits that make this story so unique and entertaining. It was refreshing. As a Homestuck Enjoyer, the last seven minutes were like being keelhauled by an F150 driving over ten miles of gravel road. But the author is right, and A6A3 really was the pinnacle of a long series of relatively minor ass-showings. I consider these last seven minutes a necessary penance, and I thank the author for contributing to my spiritual purity. EDIT: And the decision to not include one single mention of Vriska? Virtuosic. The restraint there is what makes Jan Misali one of the best.

[@Drekromancer]

Well said. This comment made me feel vindicated and seen. Thank you.

[@radicool8328]

This is literally my exact experience as well.

[@cardboardhed1967]

What is vriska? Edit: This video made me read homestuck. I now know about vriska, and something has JUST happened in the story that made me very happy, something I was hoping for for a while.

[@charadreemur8884]

@@cardboardhed1967 shhhhhhh don’t summon her

[@Melecie]

this video _does_ mention vriska at 1:58 :3

[@russelljohnson7004]

Homestuck has the hallmark of all great works: the entire back half is a tantrum directed at the audience.

[@Drekromancer]

Fuck, that's good.

[@joelhagdahl5769]

Ah, the classic Cerebus effect... Heck, even *almost* down to the rants about feminism destroying society!

[@cotton5433]

Evangelion, huh..

[@scritoph3368]

@@cotton5433 difference is, Evangelion works because its message of accepting the world and not relying on escapism is a good message, as opposed to "feminism is bad cause I can't say the r word". Also because Evangelion fans are too distracted by the hot blue haired girl to realise that Gainax is ACTIVELY BEATING THEM OVER THE HEAD with the message, especially in the rebuilds.

[@kimbleangus7321]

):(

[@Malisteen]

Reading homestuck felt like reading the first novel, listening to the first album, watching the first film, or playing the first video game. It was experiencing the birth of an entirely new storytelling medium that had never been possible before the internet, and as compelling as Homestuck itself was, I couldn't wait to see what would come next. Sadly, what came next was the enclosure of the internet and the death of Flash, and an entire unexplored horizon of human expression was strangled in its crib, leaving homestuck alone as a monument to what could have been.

[@Drekromancer]

Wow. This is really profound. You've named a feeling I couldn't describe. Thank you.

[@Zekiraeth]

Reading this comment immediately got me wondering if that kind of thing could ever have happened in the past, but it doesn't really seem possible before the internet. Every type of medium before the digital age would have had to be physical, and thus could be replicated by anyone with the right materials. If an archeologist discovered a previously unknown type of audio record, it wouldn't be difficult to recreate the technology and make new ones. But there's only one internet. If it changes in a significant way, things that relied on old systems simply can't exist. (as seen with Flash) I don't know how to feel about the fact that humanity created a system which has made it possible for mediums of art to go extinct.

[@Kulpo]

I just want to remind everyone that BlueMaximas Flashpoint exists and has preserved most of existing flash media.

[@FrostyMac]

Great comment, but if you know where to look, it isn’t ENTIRELY accurate.

[@Sandtalon]

@@FrostyMac that’s part of the problem though, homestuck was just There. Easy access for everyone with an internet connection, no need to look in a particular way for it all to work

[@GroundHOG-2010]

Because it wasn't touched on in video, being not able to smell is a real disability, it's called Anosmia. While not as immediately obvious as sight or hearing loss, there is a lot of things we use smell for, such as detecting smoke, spoiled food, etc. In addition, socially smell is a big thing, so being unable to smell can cause social anxiety. There are also other research into it that point to a much, much larger impact as far as even how your body digests things.

[@sambradley9091]

yeah, I don't have full anosmia, but I do have damn near close to it, and my entire high school experience was anxiety wracked because I had no idea if I'd come home and have my mom exclaim that I smell and realize I smelled like that the *entire time.* I have to have other people check if food is still good because I can only ever smell VERY rotten meat and at that point I could just tell visually too.

[@calebleeb5775]

As someone who lost their smell completely due to the virus I think it's pretty hilarious most of the time. At work I can always help out with the grossest tasks because it doesn't bother me when something smells rancid. There are some smells I really miss, but oevrall like most things it's not worth the stress. Laugh it off y'know?

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Especially since covid, I feel like people are now starting to realize how important smell really is.

[@gayidek]

i experienced it for 5 days last year and it was absolute hell or me because I compulsively check the smell of a lot of things. it thankfully came backbut damn i'd never wish it on anyone

[@skippycoulter]

The onset of anosmia can also affect libido which can be distressing for a lot of people and their relationships if they have relationships where that sort of thing is important.

[@patroka]

Omg that ‘resurrection methods graph’ had me in stitches. And I didn’t expect it would be so funny to just hear someone read out the story structure either, lmao. And to top it off with a sober example of its problems! Great work as always. I never know what to expect from you, but I always know it’s gonna be good.

[@joannawood7352]

hearing that i gave up tice,three years apart, on the SECOND TO LAST SUB-ACT made me so goddamn mad, i hate homestuck someday ill finish homestuck >:(

[@asmariamoon]

I love that the graph for that is full of his trollsona's typing quirk, and he immediately launches into a discussion about typing quirks after. It's so well-timed.

[@CalumMelrose]

@@joannawood7352 this was exactly how i felt when i binge read the entire 8130 pages in 3 months

[@jackemmakem]

Finally a video that explains homestuck, a thing ive refused to ever jump into because literally everyone ive encountered has told me not to jump into it

[@squid139]

Jump into it

[@bananacat3109]

do it. lose all sense of self worth

[@royaloreo1275]

I've read like 50 pages and heard that it's the league of legend of webcomics

[@BudBonkerson]

ditto

[@jamesm6479]

I think Sarah Z's videos on homestuck are also good too

[@canislupusaqua2043]

easily the best part of this video is how well it manages to not include a single frame of vriska. highly recommend

[@liamsgreatbitgaming]

13:38?

[@RightHandElf]

@@liamsgreatbitgaming That's Aranea.

[@liamsgreatbitgaming]

oh right!!!!

[@maxwalker1091]

She's technically in the ghost army wide shot but that doesn't really count.

[@misirtere9836]

@@maxwalker1091 Actually, if that's the wide shot I'm thinking of, *no she's not.* That's the bigger army Tavros is able to accrue by just fucking talking to people instead of using mind control, and one feature of Tavros' army is that there are no Vriskas in it. Because she sucks.

[@faerier0t]

i got into homestuck in 2015 and dear GOD has it branded itself into my brain. ive done so much analysis into classpects its not even funny, hell i still sometimes use it to help me flesh out ocs in my mind. this video was really good, and the criticism in it is so damn valid. i feel the struggle of recommending this to other people, of the 3 people in my friend group 2 of them read homestuck at the same time i did and the other 1 always talks about reading it now so he can understand our jokes. ive always just been like “GOD NO DONT DO THAT TO URSELF” but now im considering sending him this video so he can get at least an idea of what it was

[@angelramirez936]

What all was even available to analyze classpects tho? Lowjey would love to look into myself x,D

[@faerier0t]

@@angelramirez936 there honestly wasnt a ton in canon lmao, classes like mages got NOTHING for development so everyone was really just theorizing what the classpects could be, what powers they could they could have, etc. if u wanna look into it tho, tumblr is where i found a majority of my analysis stuff. people had blogs dedicated to it, and even if they arent active anymore most of em r still up :DD

[@smirkingshark]

GODDD i love classpecting so much even after 7 years i still love classpecting characters from other media. Tho the downside of this is that no one gets it bc its so niche these days LMAO

[@radi_7]

there are two types of homestuck fans: 1. the ones who want to spread homestuck like a disease 2. the ones who want to protect people from the horrors that lie within personally, i'm a 1

[@zanzaklaus2496]

With the hemospectrum stuff: one thing that I thought was really cool when reading was the idea that those higher up the spectrum had longer lifespans, because with how utterly murderous their society is and how those lower on the caste are often used like batteries or tools to be spent and replaced, I thought what Homestuck was going for was a commentary on how this understanding came to be. We can't actually be sure whether those lower on the hemospectrum have shorter lifespans. Of course those lower in a caste system would have a shorter life expectancy on average. All the trolls *believe* that those lower on the caste die early because they are biologically weak, but that's the exact kind of propaganda you can imagine a racist fascist society would employ to wave away the deaths of those at the bottom of the system. And then we see in the Beforus timeline, one that lives in an (admittedly not perfect, but) significantly more peaceful, democratic, egalitarian society, that the blood spectrum lifespan thing still exists, and the whole opportunity is ruined.

[@AtticusKarpenter]

Good idea, but hemospectrum castes are not divided into "biologically worst" and "biologically best" in canon either. The higher the caste, the longer the troll lives, it is harder to kill him, he is more aggressive and more resistant to psionics, but he is less likely to have psionics himself. Psionics and a mind that is not clouded by a constant thirst for violence are valuable advantages of the lower castes, and all troll players (except for insane Gamzee and domination fetishist Equius) after leaving Alternia dont care about differences in their hemospectrum (and this is said a couple of times, usually in response to Equius). Removing the distinctions between fantasy species (or subspecies) only to make them a commentary on racial oppression in reality is really bad advice. I had enough in Detroit: Become Human, where is nothing robotic about robots and nothing about robot self-awareness and its development to the human level, it's just a moral fable about, you know, a person of color hacking other people of color into rebellion against whites. Art shouldn’t work like this, in my country we would call it “socialist realism” (when in first place in artwork is a socially approved message, not a creative idea. Not only socialists do this, of course, it just became an Eastern European meme since then) and this is not the best that was in Soviet times.

[@zanzaklaus2496]

@@AtticusKarpenter Aight well first of all you're just wrong about those canon details. "Mind clouded by violence" is not a biological aspect of the higher blooded trolls either. In fact, it's explicitly a product of the purple blood's psionic "chuckle voodoos" that poison their dreams with images of violence to create a culture of constant paranoia, betrayal, and war. It's a societal institution of their state religion (which is some of the most direct intentional social commentary you can get). The higher bloods also have psionics: as I mentioned the purple bloods have one that's fundamental to the functioning of their society, and the empress herself has ALL the psionic powers at once. And I might agree with you that just having an interesting fantasy concept on its own is good and it doesn't need to be tied to any social message. I'm 100% for artistic freedom and sometimes an artist doesn't mean anything deeper from something they put out. Except, the story *wants* it to be an allegory for race and other forms of oppression. The story directly calls attention to these parallels all the time. You're acting like I'm forcing a moral read on this aspect but that's the read that the story is *trying* to do. If that's the case, then it's perfectly valid to criticize how that read is poorly done and actually implies a lot *worse* things.

[@RaeIsGaee]

@@AtticusKarpenter All media is created in the real world, with the systems of reality coloring both the author's and audience's perception of the ficticous universe. Having people deemed to be "violent" or "more worthy" based on their *Caste*, a term with heavy historical baggage, will always call parallels to racism and systems of oppression in reality. Refusing to admit that and acting like the concept is purely apolitical is truly the worst way of writing any media, let alone a work that has an entire intermission dedicated to regurgitating 2012 MRA trash.

[@RaeIsGaee]

@@AtticusKarpenter Also, creative ideas are always going to be formed by real world environments, whether political, social, cultural, etc. Same way that you cannot have a creative idea that isn't (at least in part) informed by other ideas or concepts. And Socialist Realism isn't "this art has a message that people will support and cares about that over creativity." It was, very specifically, a form of art that the Soviet Union crafted to act as propaganda - simplified, idealized portraits of soviet life and the USSR as a whole. Having direct parallels and commentaries on society in a piece of fiction is something common to practically all fiction, regardless of how far back you look. To pretend that it isn't is to show a childish, uncritical view of media that you consume.

[@pwhqngl0evzeg7z37]

It's sad to me that this is seen as an opportunity being ruined. In short: allegories are lame, fantasy is cool.

[@Lilly-Gorney]

The opening made me smile. I love how many silly gags there are that someone who isn't paying attention to the graphics wouldn't even notice. Great video! While Homestuck has many problems (and I really have not paid attention to anything outside of Homestuck proper / some of Hiveswap) it's something that will always be so important to me and I really enjoy talking/hearing people's thoughts about it. I would probably agree with A6I3 being the worst part of Homestuck, from memory...

[@cardboardhed1967]

My favourite visual gag was he how had the kaybop hats in his inventory

[@zmansadventures]

wait there were visual gags??

[@yellowdragon101]

seeing youtube in troll language was pretty funny

[@reitrace]

@@yellowdragon101 here's troll tree

[@trash_irl3314]

@@usuario9059 i mean i liked the music and art from collide

[@shengshu3510]

When your mom calls you by your full name: Mom: January Misalignment, get over here right now! Jan misali: crap

[@aerobolt256]

they have shaped a new meme

[@mrmimeisfunny]

How the heck did you find the one word in the english language that starts with Misali? Edit: doesn't matter I remembered google autocomplete exists Edit 2: I just realized January Misalignment was in the video

[@edwardnygma8533]

@@mrmimeisfunny I can't blame you. This whole thing was such a whirlwind from the start I heard "January Misalignment" and figured it was something Homestuck related entirely and just tried to keep up. I made absolutely no connection to jan himself and honestly still can't discern if that's actually where the channel name comes from.

[@mrmimeisfunny]

@@edwardnygma8533 Well, "jan Misali" means "Mr. Mitchell" in Toki Pona. So I think that's where the name of his channel comes from.

[@edwardnygma8533]

@@mrmimeisfunny Gotcha. Tbh I got into the channel for the language content but not necessarily the conlangs, so I actually haven't looked into Toki Pona at all.

[@J3Puffin]

Did I finish it? No. Did this series’ world mechanics forever impact my thoughts on how games could work? Absolutely. It’s scary how much this impacted me compared to how little I’ve actually interacted with the medium. Man, I wonder what the next “inscrutable but immensely influential work of fiction” is gonna end up being.

[@cockykhakis6265]

LMAO SAME i have been playing 4d chess whenever i try to manage my inventory in a video game since i read a bit of homestuck

[@tjbriggs7304]

This but the aspects have affected my literary analysis ever since

[@mistymysticsailboat]

my bets on dreamsmp

[@SemiHypercube]

@@mistymysticsailboat yeah probably something along the lines of that

[@Drekromancer]

@@tjbriggs7304 SAME. It's actually insane how brilliant and novel that system was. It's a _meta-narrative_ power system. That gives you _so_ many tools to work with when you're trying to figure out how characters impact the story - and how the story impacts them in turn. I literally can't stop seeing the classpects in particularly straightforward characters. Thank you for giving credit to what I believe to be one of the most brilliant, innovative concepts in the whole story.

[@macmansfield-parisi5812]

I was so enthralled by the quality of the storytelling here that I didn't realize that you not only didn't mention Vriska but legitimately removed any visual/textual reference to her, holding yourself to your promise in the intro. That couldn't have been easy.

[@xymaryai8283]

i'm a little confused why Vriska is a big deal, i'm still in Act 5 so don't spoil it if it comes later, but like, apart from having the most good art of her, and a fair amount of beguiling character development and un-development, she's not that big a deal to avoid entirely is this a r34 thing because thats my best guess based on how people react

[@Echo-tl7wh]

@@xymaryai8283 oh you sweet summer child

[@QWE2623]

@@xymaryai8283 she's a big deal just because she's controversial. generally speaking, people either absolutely hate her or love her. I've personally always been in the latter camp, but the arguments of the former totally make sense to to me too, even though I disagree. It's a permanent, perpetual source of argument. :D

[@fgvcosmic6752]

​@@xymaryai8283 its not a r34 thing. Its just that her character is controversial, because its meant to be. I cant remember how much you know by act 5, but her backatsory, specifically with Terezi, and her actions towards Tavros the whole time make her a very vicious character. Thats all it is, people recognising a characters flaws and arguing over whether that makes her a bad character or a well written bad person

[@xymaryai8283]

@@fgvcosmic6752 this seems to be constant throughout Hussie's writing, Karkat, Damara, Kankri, Mituna, Caliborn, its a difficult read because i don't know when he's writing a shitty character or writing a character shittily. at least with Caliborn the Narrator makes it clear that hes a piece of shit and theres no point trying to care about him. he's just someone everyone hates, including Hussie its probably the hardest part about the story the other hardest part is that Voiceover Nexus hasn't completed it so now i'm stuck in Act 6 actually having to read T^T

[@daishoryujin95]

Finally, someone talking about this gogforsaken story without discussing the fandom insanity or the sequels. Thank you Misali.

[@cardboardhed1967]

Are you including the epilogues in the "horrible sequels"? Just finished homestuck and wondering if they're worth reading.

[@daishoryujin95]

@@cardboardhed1967 idk man I read some of them, and I know people like them but they were NOT for me. Go ahead if you like, but proceed with extreme caution

[@IrvingIV]

@@daishoryujin95 My understanding is that it's like the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child of Homestuck.

[@daishoryujin95]

@@IrvingIV well, kind of.

[@yurifairy2969]

@@cardboardhed1967 they are misery porn and they will ruin any fond memories you had of the webcomic

[@necr0mancrr]

I think the greatest thing about your channel is that while it is true we have no idea what video you'll release next, it always somehow fits you perfectly.

[@pablomorralla3256]

ikr

[@bananacat3109]

i mean you could’ve just followed them on twitter but twitter is hell

[@felipevasconcelos6736]

@@bananacat3109 you could just follow them on tumblr, which’s also hell, but in a less hellish way.

[@J3Puffin]

@@felipevasconcelos6736 There was a memish attempt to obscure this fact by others. You, by breaking this facade, are clearly the chosen one they feared. Keep up the good work.

[@necr0mancrr]

@@Blue-Maned_Hawk the quote from the video was "unsure what to expect" which is different, but I was close enough. I'm referencing the video itself here.

[@Toberumono]

Small correction: the inconsistency in topics is a *massively* attractive feature, not a bug.

[@bananaflavouredtea8044]

I kinda hate how overshadowed the work is by it's own infamous fandom. The first five acts, up to S: Cascade are one of the most interestingly structured stuff i've ever read. For starters, Hussie had a basic structure of how the story mechanics work to begin with, whose parts could be freely altered (by the fandom choosing next moves, what stuff to prototype, names, etc.) Hussie always wanted the collective to partake in building the crazy world he's created. This, of course, got more and more difficult as the fandom got bigger and more diverse in opinions and expectations (which happenned right after the trolls were introduced). At the same time, Hussie was able to build on top of that, by integrating small details he scattered around in the first place, so that in hindsight they seem like a foreshadowing, which of course, gets exponentionally more and more difficult to navigate with time (and which was, aside for ever-growing fandom demands, one of the reason the story started collapsing into itself in the second half). Oh yeah, and on top of that Hussie proves throughout the story that he's no stranger to classical literature, referencing Bible, Greek myths and philosophy, folklore and more left and right. Yet the story feels contemporary, as the characters themselves are supposed to parody certain aspects of internet culture, which is cranked up to maximum by trolls (that is then cranked up to whatever the hell double of maximum is by the Alpha trolls.) Combined with Hussie's ability to create an engaging and funny dialogue out of absolutely everything and amazing soundtrack, i think Homestuck should be recorgnized as a piece of contemporary, post-internet literature. At least the first 5 acts, which are, in my opinion absolutely perfect and no change would make them better. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[@kasperkurpershoek1937]

"homestuck is like darksouls in that people love comparing other things to it" I love you man

[@r4bbitdragon]

As much as Homestuck has alienated me over the years, hearing the music over the intro… still catapults me back.

[@CraftyChicken91]

Same man, same.

[@johnpaulcross424]

I fell down the Homestuck rabbithole pretty much exactly 5 years ago. I can’t fully articulate how powerful the mixed emotions of disgust, wonder and amazement I felt upon having that part of my past dredged up and neatly deposited in my sub box, by you no less. Thank you for reminding me of this absolutely insane IP, and how utterly wacky it was.

[@elvencataccess7830]

As a Homestuck fan myself, I'm fucking marveling at the insane quality here.

[@lipamanka]

it's Boogs

[@hreckward]

Love how you go “And the credits are the epilogue of Homestuck” and completely ignoring (intentionally I hope) the actual Epilogues

[@XxX_afterHours_XxX]

we don't mention the epilogues

[@2-Way_Intersection]

deadass the only post-homestuck things worth giving a piss about are hiveswap and pesterquest minus maybe vriska and up to the alpha kids the former of which is just another story in the same vague universe (think deltarune to undertale) and the latter is just kinda fun, at least imo (again, until the alpha kids, fuck that. also vriska is.... euhg)

[@literallyn01imp0rtant]

@@2-Way_Intersection I think Roxy’s episode was good. And some of Dirk’s. Anything written by Lalo Hunt was a favorite of mine. Jade’s episode is the peak though.

[@scrabblehandforaname]

Well, technically, those are a separate narrative, and thus, not important to the thing actually being covered in the video. It's intended to only be loosely attached. The fact that it is an official piece of media makes that a moot point, but that's why, for example, they're formatted like AO3 fanfic.

[@michaelcarlton1484]

The epilogues made sense with the characters and set up the plot for HS^2. They honestly aren't that bad.

[@BenSaintComix]

I love Homestuck and I hate that there's so much that's just really bad about it

[@Drekromancer]

Well said. I feel the same way. I see it for all it is now. But even to this day, I can't let go. Even with all the stains, it's still worth holding onto.

[@appleoxide4489]

tf are you doing here

[@radicool8328]

same

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

same, everything went downhill after the retcon

[@BenSaintComix]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 Earlier than that I think it was all downhill after [S] Cascade

[@skalty9868]

Fantasy allegories of racism really fall apart because there are often genuine inborn differences between the races which isn’t true for reality, and i was so excited to see homestuck have a thing to be a much more effective allegory just for it to fall apart

[@cockykhakis6265]

I think the only way of saving it from there is to make it about disability, and make the message "even if these blood castes *are* different, it doesn't make any one caste lesser than any other ones" instead we get the r slur. great /s

[@Superbajt]

Differences between races in fantasy are a very useful storytelling device, and racism born out of them is a natural implication and interesting to explore. To not be real world racist text, it just needs a lot of care from author and the reader, especially the former.

[@muhilan8540]

there are genuine differences between different human populations that are not social constructs, although our current idea of race is completely made up

[@armageddongirl612]

@@cockykhakis6265 whaaaat? so just because homestuck has said that silly little word that doesn't even mean anything anymore its messages are all empty now? weak, dude

[@stacy__fakename]

@@armageddongirl612 Nah, just that the messages were already empty and the silly little slur was just the capstone on that

[@arthurhill8185]

I love how the only characters you even NAME, let alone describe, are the ones that barely even matter to the plot at the very end.

[@Apoc500]

I'm pretty sure the character not to be named isn't even DEPICTED once, which is honestly surprising

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

27:13

[@Chocomint_Queen]

I was _way_ into Homestuck. Like, I learned to sew so I could make and sell Scalemates. I helped make and moderate Pesterchum, on which I spent probably thousands hours and hours roleplaying. I must've dropped hundreds of dollars commissioning art of my OCs, both human and troll. Fuck, I bought a pair of custom prescription Sollux glasses. But I have to be honest, I just don't think it stands up as a archival work. A massive part of what made Homestuck good was the community. There was a magic in everyone having their custom update notifiers and spamming each other as each new page came out, rapid-fire discussion the moment over IRC or MSN the _instant_ an update dropped, fresh theories raging back and forth over our shitty tumblogs. Weekly screenings of Con fucking Air! Thousands of people all metaphorically standing shoulder to shoulder, together, constantly with bated breath to see what would happen next. _That_ was Homestuck, and you can't put that in an archive.

[@hivehum]

homestuck fandom in the act 4 - act 5 period was one of the best communities I've ever been in and you've posted exactly why

[@thepinkbunnyempire1027]

Maybe that’s why my reading of it last year was so bad. No one to really talk and discuss with.

[@clownform]

was also crazy to be in the forums when andrew was making jail break and stuff cuz he just drew whatever anyone said and it led to some truly hilarious storylines and really felt like you were part of the process

[@L4Vo5]

@@thepinkbunnyempire1027 This is why when I recommend homestuck to people I urge them to talk to me about it. having at least one person to discuss it with, having some their questions answered without having to google spoilers, link to the music they've already heard, etc. is something I wish I had when I read it by myself back in 2016. ... That being said, I only really got to do that with one of my friends, back in ~2018. I'd probably be worse equipped to do it now, unless I did a reread and jumped back into being quasi-obsessed with it

[@Malisteen]

Eh, you gain and lose in archival format. Especially in later acts where the real time updates were plagued with long delays and the community had soured from bad actors, video game drama, some questionable decisions and behaviors from hussie, etc. Even apart from avoiding more negative aspects, there's a flow and to archival reading that wasn't there with sporadic real time updates, even when they were at their most frequent.

[@completeepicness5070]

For future viewers: 27:46 is about the Coronavirus. One of the earliest symptoms of Corona is the loss of a sense of smell for the time you have the disease.

[@RaeIsGaee]

And many people report a chronic loss of a sense of smell or taste at best (with the worst outcome being a potentially-permanent, vomit-inducing stench/taste for literally anything - especially food).

[@empty5013]

i find it strange jan thought coronavirus was a reason to talk about that when it... it is a disability... some people can't smell... it's just a fairly minor disability compared to other things. idk just a weird angle to take there, i guess you have to mention the times?

[@RaeIsGaee]

@@empty5013 I think it's more about describing how more people have experienced it and understand more deeply how it's a disability, whereas just going "it's literally a real thing that messes with daily function" doesn't establish that fact super well.

[@ew275x]

@@empty5013 Also the joke was also another parody on Daredevil thatbTerezi had where Latula somehow learned to smell through her other senses.

[@Fralexion]

I appreciate this because I'm from the past

[@ChromeBirb]

As someone who knows literally nothing about homestuck except that the funny skeleton song is in it, I'm both excited and terrified to finally learn about homestuck from jan misali specifically. Edit: Oh, I see

[@DragonWinter36]

Those three words say so, so much more.

[@theharvinator]

yeah

[@zixvirzjghamn737]

@@DragonWinter36 I don't get it

[@DragonWinter36]

@@zixvirzjghamn737 too bad

[@ashopal5811]

2 minutes in and... I remember why I used to adore Homestuck. The writing style and the whole framing device really was something else, something I've never seen again

[@keiyakins]

I actually kind of like Kankri, because of the context of the Sufferer. Literally the only difference is that the Sufferer was *focused*. Kankri is still a youngster flitting from idea to idea.

[@EmileeAria413]

I definitely appreciate that you were able to find some nuance in Kankri. That said, I don't think that Hussie really intended that, at least not initially. Everything in A6A6A3 is just so meanspirited.

[@pseudophori6541]

yeah, that was always my read. like, i still think it’s mean spirited to make fun of children, but the text is fundamentally optimistic about their underlying character and capability to do good. the annoying sjw kid growing up to be jesus (not to mention meta-knowledge of hussie’s ideology) lets me trust that there’s nuanced intent beyond “baby sjws bad,” though i do tend to favor the charitable reading of art because i like liking art

[@robinhoodproductions5102]

Kankri is a sad character because his existence in Beforan was that of a glorified pet but because there’s no risk of “death” since he was such a precious rare thing people discard everything he has to say. His extreme victimization and narration of his own oppression while still clinging to high blood boots read to me like a person of color who was adopted by a rich white family and is now trying to connect himself with his origins through the most tone deaf way possible. Or a toddler fed up with the world but told that the only way he could ever make a difference is speak well instead of sincerely. Walls of text in bright red meant to draw attention but only driving others away. “Please notice how messed up society is #tw society #tw reality #soft culling”

[@EmileeAria413]

@@robinhoodproductions5102 That's really interesting and insightful! Like, if that was the point of Kankri's character, that'd be kind of groundbreaking. Shame that, again, there's no way that Hussie intended that based on what he had his self-insert character say later on.

[@robinhoodproductions5102]

@@EmileeAria413 kankri is a parody of “sjw” tumblr but early tumblr, behind all the “cringe”, had this tiny spark of “I want to make the world better and I don’t know how”. it’s both frustrating word salad and genuine concern for others that is so easily stifled on the internet. so regardless of how intentionally badly kankri is written, I can’t help but be sympathetic towards what he is, isn’t and what he could grow up to be if allowed to exist beyond a 2 dimensional forever 19 boy with mommy issues.

[@lizzzylavender]

Everything I hear about homestuck just confuses me more, but it’s also so fascinating. If you do another video just giving more opinions on it, I’d be 100% on board.

[@maxwalker1091]

That's a feature of the work. Homestuck is intentionally complex and weird and confusing on just about every level, but the fucked up part is that it works, mostly. Its a truly masterful kludge of a work that should fall apart with the slightest examination, and yet it holds tight. The concepts and themes and characters remained so engaging throughout that the people who got into Homestuck rode with it through every bizarre narrative conceit. There's nothing quite like it, and there never again will be. Thank god.

[@defaultdan7923]

for real, it’s so interesting as an outside observer seeing people so torn

[@robertoXCX]

Ever since I first watched "w" and subscribed, this channel has been an absolute enigma to me. 10/10 though, please continue with literally whatever is next in the lineup!

[@herohalv4543]

it was the gosh dang hangman video for me same

[@gege1178]

@@herohalv4543 the hangman vid for me too if i have a youtube channel it's going to very similar

[@Drekromancer]

I clicked on this video so fast it scared me. And then I read a few comments and clicked away. I am afraid of the tide of emotions that this video threatens to unleash upon me. I was an early fan (circa 2011) and a cosplayer, and the story and community both meant so much to me. I immersed myself in this world so thoroughly, from the music, to the worldbuilding, to the theorycrafting, to the classpects. But after all that, I realized I'd let it consume me, and I found my way out. Now, over 10 years since I discovered Homestuck, it's such a complicated mess of emotions that I'm not sure if I'm ready to wade back into it yet. That said, I feel like I have to. Homestuck meant so much to me, and to this day, I still think it's one of the boldest artistic endeavors of our time. It is a deeply flawed experiment, from start to bloody finish, but I firmly believe that it deserves to be taken seriously as a groundbreaking piece of media. Some of the concepts it introduced (such as classpects, alchemy, & the CYOA-inspired, mixed-media format of the story) have been so unique and innovative that they still remain branded into my memory - and I feel that the entire Homestuck phenomenon had such a wide-reaching cultural footprint that it cannot be ignored. Even if we don't want to look back at what it was, we owe it to ourselves to understand what came of it. Because now, even to this day, new works are woven from the threads taken from Homestuck. Each person who touched it was subtly but permanently changed, and those marks they carry will pave the way for more innovation. One day, I hope to see someone take up the mantle and succeed where Homestuck failed.

[@locustoffamine2644]

Homestuck was something that I read a bit of upon the insistance of a girl I had a crush on. Once we parted ways, I couldn't finish HS, nor consume any related media due to the emotional relation to her it still had in my mind. Now, three years later, this was the first HS-related thing I experienced intentionally. Thanks to you, I no longer have to wonder if I should just brace myself and read/play the thing. I won't, but it's not because of her, but because it just isn't something I would enjoy. I guess what I'm trying to say is, thank you for helping me to move on. I always enjoy your content, but this had a personal impact as well. Thank you.

[@nahometesfay1112]

Oof something similar happened to me, but it was "Their Eyes were Watching God" which was actually a fairly short and really good book. I guess I got lucky.

[@dooplon5083]

I had a similar experience once, albeit with not being able to listen to one of my favorite songs because I themed a character around it in a dnd homebrew game and the DM that I _thought_ was a cool guy turned out to be a massive prick once I actually joined the game. I can't help but feel pissed sometimes whenever I try to listen to it, but knowing that he's pissed off so many of my other friends we play dnd with makes me feel vindicated enough that I can at least listen to it now without having to stop playing it at the start lol, we've all sworn off of his games for good. In a funny coincidence the song was Sunshine by Johnathan Edwards, the lyrics were weirdly really applicable in places lol.

[@ohdannyboy33]

I don't think I've seen someone take something as big as homestuck and really break it down into something this manageable. Thought the "Act" part was very well put together to really emphasize how bad the pacing can get.

[@bidaubadeadieu]

Despite the somewhat saturated market of homestuck video essays, this one come the closest to being able to capture the same manic enthusiasm I felt for all the intricacies of homestuck lore in 2011/2012. And even this video spends exactly 0 seconds before immediately getting meta and rhapsodic. I appreciate what you did with the Alchemy segment, Homestuck *does* introduce a lot of mechanics that it completely anticipates will become irrelevant and MSPA readers will forget about. I do wish more writers though managed to successfully talk about homestuck's plot like you (sorta) did! particularly Act 4 through Act 5 Act 2, which I would call, uh, the good part, and then how the dancestors subsequently sucked ass. since the lore and convoluted plot and fan theories are what I remember loving most about it in the first place.

[@daveslamjam]

you madman, you did it. you describes the entirety of homestuck and its flaws without showing or mentioning vriska even once.

[@geowaffle6669]

i always thought that the whole point of the haemospectrum being a weird system thats extremely complicated and doesnt actually talk about real world issues is supposed to be a joke about other alien allegories for human social issues. like how they always somehow manage to be way too complicated yet still somehow over-simplify everything and end up not being completely fucking unhelpful

[@elizabethb4168]

Ah yes, the age old question, "is it satire, or is it just being the thing?"

[@gonb5434]

@@elizabethb4168 i feel like i run into this question every 5 minutes i spend on the internet, partly becuase everyone operates on 3 levels of irony, partly because people who are "just being the thing" can point to the former as a cop-out at any time

[@elizabethb4168]

@@gonb5434 also because there are just a lot of people who straight up don't know what satire actually is

[@respectable-username]

Considering how "trolling" is intertwined with the story itself and especially what characters thats part of...(lmao) its pretty neato that itd be a troll tactic to bait and do the thing they personally dislike just for the lols.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

I feel like the hemospectrum could have been a great allegory for classism, and could have opened up critiques of capitalism but no

[@CurtBlakeslee]

great video, jan! i really loved Homestuck and its initial "what if The Sims was an MMO that affected reality" premise, but admit that it became so overwhelmingly complex that i stopped following. i feel lucky to have gotten a couple songs published through it ("Beatdown" - the Dave strife theme) and had a lot of fun chatting and uploading music with the other musicians on the forums for the brief period i was involved, so i'm definitely in the "I Like Homestuck" camp, but i'm also talking about the small, early fraction of the body of work that i've actually... read? seen? played? ultimately, for me i think it comes down to the experience you described when talking about alchemy. it was like the perfect video game: because each action was hand-crafted, the possibilities really were as endless as they felt. it was like playing video games as a little kid, before you understood the limitations of hardware or programming meant that these worlds were less robust than the real world.

[@VeritasUnae]

hey norock! cool to see you still around :D

[@armageddongirl612]

wait... YOU made beatdown? that's so cool!

[@radi_7]

i just encountered this but holy shit its the guy that made beatdown (its the guy that made beatdown) (absolute fire) (im sorry)

[@CacoPholey]

I'm at the point where hearing the first 4 notes of even the homestuck version of megalovania initiates my fight or flight response, goddamn you internet

[@Drekromancer]

I'm fucking crying. Never have I seen the last 7 years of media encapsulated so well.

[@younggamer7218]

megalovania

[@lunactiathemoth]

sans undertal

[@J4CKNO1R]

@@lunactiathemoth vriska homestuc

[@maximillion322]

There’s something INCREDIBLY funny about making a comparison to Dark Souls in the sense that both things are frequently compared to other things, as demonstrated by their comparison in this sentence.

[@DragonWinter36]

I’d also say that this was the first strand-type webcomic

[@Moggetslittlesister]

13:04 "...which is very different from bringing someone back to life" yeah I'm also still salty that Jane's dad was treated as the replacement for John's dad Amazing video--it's so cool how much effort you put into the unique parts with your OC! I'm hoping this starts a trend of looking back at homestuck as a story instead of just focusing on the fandom, now that the drama seems to have finally sputtered out. There's a whooole lot to talk about in the text itself; for example how layered almost every troll is, with aesthetics drawing from their horoscope sign in addition to drawing parallels to other stories, like Peter Pan with Vriska and Tavros and Harry Potter with Eridan.

[@EmileeAria413]

You fucking nailed Homestuck's writing style, Misali. Homestuck was so huge and so different that I think the advent of hyper-meta writing styles in fiction was mostly influenced by Homestuck. I really hope that sometime in the future something like Homestuck happens again. It had major flaws that I think were, in hindsight, a symptom of Andrew Hussie letting popularity get to his head. He always had the shit opinions showcased in A6A6A3, he just finally was bold enough to say them out loud by 2012. Also, honestly a really well designed Trollsona, just wanted to get that out there. I'm also really glad you touched on how inaccessible Homestuck is from a medium perspective, including how the typing quirks made reading the text so much harder. But as you said, the typing quirks were also a kind of ingenious way to build unique, multi-dimensional characters. It's kind of like how when you're learning how to write a screenplay or novel it's recommended that beginners assign a verbal rule to every character. Typing quirks, while not accessible to use in a final product, could be a good tool for beginner writers to use if/when struggling to figure out how to write in a character's voice. Edit: Also, your breakdown of what Homestuck's medium is mentioning TableTop RPGs only strengthens my desire for a Sburb TTRPG system that includes Captchalogues and systems for building your own Fetch Modus as well as guidelines on how to handle Alchemy. Regardless of the flaws Homestuck's story has, its world is just so fun to think about and experiment with.

[@cardboardhed1967]

Yeah for all Misali says about how he "doesn't even like homestuck" he sure seemed to revel in making his own OC and being extremely clever about it. Him ascending to god tier as a sylph of blood even works as a perfect segway for talking about the hemospectrum at 22:45

[@iantaakalla8180]

@@cardboardhed1967 That may be more a function of jan Misali being all meta the way Homestuck is meta and participating in Homestuck tropes, but the problem is that you cannot mock Homestuck because you then add to Homestuck. You need as objective and calm a take as possible while dodging so many bombs.

[@thewanderingmistnull2451]

Any time I see people say this, I have to wonder if they've read anything before they read Homestuck.

[@LOLlipopsRoxs]

Sylph of Blood is such a good classpect for you, hell yes. "The one who creates and heals through history, connections, and meaning to advance others." on brand okay as someone who has their own MSPFA i have spent hours pouring over the alchemy system, and i tried to write an in characters explanation of all the mechanics, and also how SBURB entry works this video is is worth every single Patreon dollar ive spent, it's so fun to see someone talk about all the smaller and more meta things i love about homestuck

[@Wafflical]

"the one who improves communication" "the one who criticizes language" (from Boogs' bonus materials)

[@iantaakalla8180]

He even explains like he is an Aranea character, the Sylph of Light, so that title is well earned.

[@selenaphobia]

Homestuck is one of those pieces of seminal media that changed me and made me become a better person despite my late adoption. It perfectly encapsulates the beauty, terror, excitement, and downright disgusting elements of growing up on the internet. It also fucking sucks in places, is hard to read a lot, and the Beforus trolls as a whole, but Mituna in specific deserved to be better integrated in the plot and be kinder written overall. At this point, I think the fandom is mainly people who like the fanworks of Homestuck that play upon the ideas that were put in by the original creators, but never fully realized. Also Mituna deserves like, 6 fanventures

[@Drekromancer]

I feel highly represented by this comment. The first 4 sentences in particular. Thank you for giving a voice to feelings I couldn't name. 🙂

[@XxX_afterHours_XxX]

wweh

[@hippolytabaker9559]

I relate to this comment and I oscillate rapidly between wanting to make a Beforus fan JRPG that does a *lot* of heavy corrections and (in some places) complete personality shifts, and wanting nothing to do with it as long as my brain can help me. But unfortunately Mituna is *the* character I relate to the most and Mitula is my OTP, so the latter is...rather difficult.

[@selenaphobia]

@@hippolytabaker9559 Mitula is the only good part of Mituna's characterization and it gives us so many little glimpses into who mituna could've been if Hussie thought disabled people deserved to be treated well I say go for it with the RPG, Homestuck's in our hands now, not Hussie's

[@Kaiasky]

> better person > eridan pfp (/j)

[@Zekiraeth]

Homestuck has always seemed so intriguing to me because no one ever talks about it without at least implying that it's awful and somehow an eldritch horror of early 2010s internet culture that the world must be protected from knowing about. Every time I learn something about it I can see why they think that, but also also it seems so unique and interesting that I can't help but be curious about it. A part of me has wanted to read it for a while, just to finally know what's up (and also because I think the idea of unironically getting into Homestuck nowadays and telling tumblr users about it is funny), but never so much that I'd act on that, because it seemed difficult and time consuming and maybe not worth it. This video is definitely still like that, except jan Misali is the first person I've encountered who isn't afraid of talking about Homestuck in depth, and now I feel like I would have some idea of what I'd be getting myself into if I ever decided to read it, but also not really.

[@scrabblehandforaname]

I think part of it is that for a good number of people, it brings back significant discomfort. It reminds them of being an awkward teen. It has issues with how it handles other cultures, as discussed towards the end of the video. It has a cluster@#$% of mismanagement attached to it. I, myself, refuse to refer to it in any way that isn't euphemistically. In short, I think the reason most people refer to it as the eldritch horror is mainly because they want to distance themselves from something that they don't quite want to admit to having actually LIKED at some point.

[@d3ada5tronaut]

I didn’t read homestuck until 2019 when I was in my second year of university. I’d grown up knowing about it but I’d never actually encountered or even really heard of the toxic fan base until I was already in my late teens, despite having read the first few acts of it at 14. No matter what it’s a little bit of a mess but it’s also a profound piece of art that really legitimately moved me when I finally read it to completion. It is time consuming and I read it over the course of MONTHS and would play piano music in the background so I didn’t go crazy, but now listening to that same piano music I get nostalgic for the experience. Whenever someone mentions homestuck I get excited and want to talk about it like I would any of my other interests but I always have to preface what I say and tread carefully because of its history in the public consciousness. It’s something good haunted by its former fan base’s reputation and everyone who read it knows that so it keeps being talked about again and again and can’t quite ever be left in the past. People don’t really talk about voltron anymore but we do talk about homestuck. Idk tldr good art bad fan base but worth a read now that that’s in the past, a worthy time investment because like I said, good art, some damn good jokes buried under general silliness, and access to the full truth of its presence in the public consciousness

[@scrabblehandforaname]

@@d3ada5tronaut, I wouldn't chalk it up to just the fanbase though. There's also the story of what happened to the brand after the story completed. I point you to Sarah Z's video on the topic.

[@nahometesfay1112]

If you want to know what it's about but don't want to read it, read the MSPA wiki summary instead

[@rivkah8607]

homestuck is unironically good, and you should read it. i've gotten 3 people into homestuck in the past year. (and reread it like 3 times)

[@incorporealnuance]

I've thought about making a language out of the verb of noun classpect system and this video + channel combo is making my brain implode

[@DiamondBrickZ]

my thoughts exactly. if i saw someone like say scruffy making something like say a five nights at freddy’s video, i’d be fine. but this channel and this topic?? absolutely bonkers. it’s like if tom scott made a video about the dreamsmp

[@Thorne-In-Your-Side]

@@DiamondBrickZ That's a surprisingly apt comparison.

[@jr637-1]

I never thought I would be so entertained not learning/understanding a single thing about a topic before, which is a testament to how fun it is watching a video of jan misali explaining things.

[@EthanWasHere]

I hate how much this video has made me want to read Homestuck again. I know in my heart I shouldn't, but damn if the long winded explanation of the alchemy system didn't make me nostalgic

[@violetjade64]

ugh same 😭😭😭

[@MarkusAldawn]

I can recommend Like One Sundered Star for that. After it'd been a while since I'd read Homestuck, I read LOSS, and it was honestly great. It's a similar length, but it both builds off and veers from the already-established canon of Homestuck. The author has a much lighter touch on the narrative, but still manages to engage meta aspects, etc. I just really enjoyed it, I think it's worth reading it instead of rereading Honestuck (partially because HS hasn't held up too well)

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@@MarkusAldawn What's it about?

[@MarkusAldawn]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 it was based off a superhero AU, but slowly grew a plot. Saying more would be spoiling too much, but it's definitely worth a read if you like the creativity of Homestuck and want it compressed into character, plot, and superpower usage.

[@Metaphizzle]

I always thought Mituna was _intended_ as an insult to 4chan users, not disabled people. The dead giveaway was that his text boxes were formatted like posts on an imageboard, while everyone else's were formatted like tumblr posts. Not defending that, of course. It's still _unconsciously_ super insulting to disabled people. If an author dunks on someone they dislike by portraying them as a disabled person, it implicitly says a lot about their opinion of disabled people.

[@Makin-]

Ironically, 4chan loved Mituna, so Hussie's intention didn't even work.

[@goombizdvorakkiewicz5226]

@@Makin- bruh

[@CollinBuckman]

I think Hiveswap definitely nailed the 4chan parody character a lot better with Kuprum Maxlol, rather than being disabled he's portrayed as an asshole who views everyone around him as an idiot; he simultaneously hates the higher castes while also being intensely nationalistic and being really thrilled at the idea of being made a living battery in an imperial warship

[@respectable-username]

I figured its more bc people on 4chan refer to each other using ableist language and implications, therefore leading to the representation of them all being just that. Like if theyre all calling each other that, then portray them that way. As someone with a 2x mental disability combo, gotta say, Mituna was funny as hell to interact with, as well as pitiful in the parts of his actual personality that shine through. I felt like he was one of the more characterized characters of the dancestors- apart from Meenah of course.

[@revlarmilion9574]

@@CollinBuckman See, but that's a joke someone who'd never been on pre-2012 4chan would make. That's some kind of toothless /pol/ caricature (they're much worse than that), instead of a parody of /b/, which is what Mituna was.

[@kitisgr8]

I feel like this sums up all of my thoughts about homestuck perfectly. From the thoughts about the hemospectrum, from the game mechanics, from the act 6 intermission 3 this is spot on.

[@ThatOneIrishFurry]

Making the video look like an act of homestuck was a really cool presentation choice! That must of taken a lot of work 😅

[@HBMmaster]

that's all boogs! they did a great job with everything. check the link in the pinned comment

[@ThatOneIrishFurry]

@@HBMmaster well big respect to them 👀💙

[@shrimplicity4551]

One thing I always found a bit funny is, that as far as I've seen, Mituna is one of the most popular alternate ancestors. But not because they treat him as a joke, but as an actual character. He is actually one of my favourite characters, mostly in concept. A dude who sacrificed himself to the point of brain damage to protect his group from danger he warned about but wasn't believed? That's a really cool concept. I think I am in the minority but I really would love to see the dancestors extended upon, but as actual characters who aren't just really uncomfortable jokes. There are concepts that could be explored with them that seem really interesting. Eh, at least we have fanfics and the like for that. I will always like the version I imagine all of them to be in my head much more than who they actually are as characters in-universe.

[@batterwitch745]

the sad thing about homestuck characters is that even characters that were designed to be huge fucking jokes (i.e equius, kankri, mituna, etc) by hussie actually have a lot of depth if you look into them and infer your own analysis on them. like, equius being a product of the idea that even if you follow your society's ruling class to a t you're still screwed over (and the fact that hes an heir of void, and he died while being void of air). or how kankri's opinion on the world would of probably stemmed from his heavily coddled upbringing in beforus. it sucks so much cause these characters have TONS of potential, but hussie just reduced them to "the brain damage one" or "the one who likes horse dicks and has testicle in his username" or "the funny sjw one"

[@enderwalkgang]

@@batterwitch745 Nah according the book he seems to LOVE Some of these trolls, Like Equius, he uncomfortablely likes Equius. He's fucking proud of that jokester, I think the people who worked on HS^2 are at more fault for not during flesh them out proper. They had the opportunity. They opted for their highly specific headcanons, some of them dunking on thusly destroying things of canon people actually liked, and some of the having gross sexual undertones that came out of left feild and made the authors search history when they were just fans not writers clear.

[@asocksual4910]

I can tell you from personal experience that you're not the only person who wants to appreciate and explore the characters of the Beforus trolls a bit more deeply! I know there's at least one fan-made visual novel about life for them pre-game

[@iantaakalla8180]

Mituna, even for a damaged character amidst parodies of dated people, is actually treated with respect. When both Kankri and Cronus shit on Mituna, both are called out. In fact, this is the one time Kankri correctly calls out someone even if he hates Mituna himself and is ableist himself. His disability is a disability, and it does hurt him but he still lives life not necessarily as a joke (I say that because the Beforan trolls are inherent jokes of Tumblr people archetypes mid-2013).

[@flamingpi2245]

Horrus, despite being a non-character is even fascinating when you take into account that his classpect basically doomed him into wasting his innumerable talents and falling into irrelevancy

[@ThatOneIrishFurry]

"I don't think there will be anything like homestuck ever again which is great because it sucks but it was also really good"

[@potentialPizza8]

I'm extremely happy that this video just exists to talk about a few interesting parts of Homestuck. Because they actually are interesting. Like I was already excited knowing this wasn't a comprehensive story review or about the fandom or about Vriska, but you've also picked some of the most interesting parts of it to talk about. I think Alchemy was a big part of what got me into the story in the first place. For a while I didn't quite "get" it, even as I can enjoy Act I on reread now. But as soon as John created the Pogo Hammer, I was interested in seeing both how it would be used, and what else could be created. As you say, it could never exist in a real game, as there are too many possibilities. But I think because of that it captured the fantasy of a video game, the idea of a world where you can do anything you imagine, whereas most games have limitations and require you to embellish with your imagination to feel true immersion. The fact that every single way of coming back to life that you mentioned was something I was already familiar with is really making it hit me that still, years later, I have all of that obsessive knowledge of how all of Homestuck's systems work. And I'm not able to stop enjoying it, the game of who will die and how and what way they will be revived. Though I never looked at it through the lens of typing quirks, I do feel like the way so many characters have distinct, likeable, and interesting personalities is part of why to this day, I can't bring myself to outright dislike Homestuck. It's so flawed, so indulgent in its own style, and fumbles it story worse and worse as it goes on, but in the end so much of it is just watching characters I like doing fun things. It's enjoyable! But I'm glad you talked about the completely fumbled commentary of the hemospectrum. I never considered that and it's honestly pretty fucked up. Like damn that is one missing conversation for sure. But I did always take it as... I dunno, somewhat meaningful that humans have red blood? I don't know how much direct influence on that kind of thing they had when creating their genesis frog - probably none - but I always took it like as, hey, Karkat got to make a universe where his mutation was seen as normal. But the dancestors... yeah. I knew this was coming, but even then, I don't think I ever realized THAT was the joke with Porrim. Yikes. I'm kind of thankful I wasn't even that deep into internet culture at the time so a lot of it was just lost on me. Felt like weird awkward unfunny jokes, but god it really is offputting. I related a lot to your conclusion about how hard to recommend it is, how huge it is, and how hard it is to escape comparing to it. Honestly, I'm just happy it led to Prequel existing.

[@franciscofernandez8183]

Prequel has some of the best single updates of any webcomic ever. It's really one of the hidden gems of 2010's internet culture

[@Drekromancer]

@@franciscofernandez8183 Amen to you both. I feel that you've both captured your topics so well that I can't even figure out what to add. All I can say is thank you for making me feel seen.

[@RaeIsGaee]

Prequel is definitely one of the best Homestucklikes out there and basically fixed all the problems with Homestuck - its funny, interesting, focused on a select few characters, handles social topics decently well despite being from the mid to late 2010s and actively avoiding making direct connections with real topics, etc.

[@potentialPizza8]

@@RaeIsGaee It's kinda incredible how Prequel iterates on the narration style and makes it MORE character-driven, MORE clever, and avoids all of those awkward overdone Hussie-isms.

[@RenaDeles]

... I will say there is plenty of room for different interpretations but from my own views at the time and also from a recent reread I have to hard disagree that that's the joke with her. Her joke is actually part of Kankri's, in he plays at being progressive and helping people but actually talks over people a lot and is often insulting to the people he's trying to help. I appreciate it as somebody who's run into a million Kankris irl. Porrim meanwhile is an actual feminist, and she's meant to show how full of Shit this teenage version of Kankri is. We know he has the potential to grow past that, from his alt adult self, but this one is stuck as a teenager who just uses the language of progressivism to bully others.

[@kerorose1]

this was the most Homestuck a video about Homestuck has ever felt to me, thank you

[@cardboardhed1967]

This video made me read homestuck, and I read the whole thing in a 2 week period if you can believe it. I agree with Misali about pretty much everything. I enjoyed the experience a lot, but I don't think I'll go around recommending it to anyone. There are a few characters that get such a bad go of things, they never do anything wrong, and you keep waiting for them to finally have their moment, until you realise that you're not supposed to like them, and their suffering is supposed to be enjoyable somehow. And on the other side of the coin there are characters who are absolutely horrible and while you wait for them to get their comeuppance, you realise you were wrong again. That despicable character was "Cool" and you were supposed to be rooting for them all along. People who've read it will know what I'm talking about. Anyway aside from stuff like that it was a lot of fun.

[@theMoporter]

As someone who didn’t like Tavros, he was done dirty. It made no sense to develop Tavros as a character only for it to turn out that, nope, he’s still a jobber. Good heel work for Vriska, sure, but it makes both him and the relationship way less interesting than if he actually managed to lay a finger on her, or if he lost but we got some idea of what either one felt about it after the fact. Was Tavros angry that he still wasn’t powerful enough? Regretful that he had stooped to violence for nothing? Nah, he was ultimately just a red shirt who got half a character arc for no reason. Just bad writing.

[@EchoingRuby]

I think one important thing that should have been brought up is the Act 6 update schedule. Like it had so many giant hiatuses so close together, and so much of Act 6 focused on new characters, and all the stress no doubt caused by the Kickstarter fiasco, that by the end it really felt like Hussie had forgotten how to write his own characters. It really stung because it kind of felt like these characters, who (at least for the main set) are well-written with distinct voices and arcs and stuff, didn't actually get an ending.

[@Drekromancer]

I think you've perfectly captured the thing that threw so many people off the bandwagon during Act 6. Like, nobody stops reading during Act 5, right? They either don't reach it, or they finish it completely because it's awesome. But Act 6 is where most people fell off - both the concurrent readers and the archive delvers. I made it to the end. But I see why many people didn't. He made us care so much about these wonderful characters, and then he left them in a dusty attic to be forgotten. While those characters do end up doing some cool and interesting things, it never quite stops feeling like those characters never came out of the box in the same condition they were in at the peak of the story. It just wasn't the same.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Out of all the beta kids, only Roxy mattered (and possibly Dirk if you like how the Striders talked through their traumas, how Dirk created the corrupting puppet that would become Doc Scratch and also Lord English, and possibly even more if you can connect Dirk’s problems to him becoming the villain as Ultimate Dirk come The Epilogues and Homestuck^2). Jake failed to be an ultimate hero and was just Aranea’s pawn and then Jane’s pawn, and Jane became controlled by The Condesce then became evil herself. Out of the all the alpha trolls, only Meenah mattered (and possibly Damara and Kurloz for contributing to the rise of Caliborn as Lord English. Even more slightly Aranea if you consider her the reason why the initial timeline ultimately failed without retconning powers.). Horuss literally lingered in obscurity bettering himself for nothing. Rufioh is mere worldbuilding involving a Peter-Pan-weeaboo culture. Kankri’s best feature is him in an alternate timeline and is otherwise a self-important righteous hypocrite. Mituna’s best feature is his backstory given he’s now just a 4chan parody. Cronus is just an asshole. Mewlin is far more irrelevant that Nepeta is for the same reasons; at least a Nepeta made it to the end as a sprite-squared. Porrim is definitely well-adjusted but she does not do anything beyond her troll group. Latula is cooler but also keeps to her friend group. Despite him actively bringing up the idea of the “timeline” as an inherently oppressive thing because it forces a narrative where otherwise other interesting stories could be focused on, in the end he too fell to that trap. While stories must be focused upon, unlike many other stories this one went on for so long that it seemed like all the characters mattered. And then they didn’t and it was just the four kids we started out with, the nicer beta trolls, Meenah, and Roxy (and Dirk). And while the story really discourages us from reading a “narrative” into Homestuck simply because that’s Caliborn’s schtick, in the end he unfortunately decided what mattered and it wasn’t the people he created. It was very ironically the story and the plot.

[@honoratagold]

The fact that the characters we spend all the time with aren't technically the ones at the end of the story, and we miss all their growth in the three years moving to the post-scratch universe in the retcon continuity definitely makes a lot of homestuck ultimately feel like a shaggy dog story. But I think a lot of it was that the issues with Hiveswap and Hussie's various other projects leading to all those hiatuses caused a lot of problems in Act 6 that came across in the story (through the hiatuses and not). Prior to Homestuck, Problem Sleuth was the only one of Hussie's projects they'd actually finished, and I do wonder if they were also just kind of running out of steam on Homestuck in general by Act 6 regardless of if there had been a Hiveswap Kickstarter and if there had been issues with it or not. The sheer amount of time Hussie spent on early Homestuck and its lightning fast update schedule probably was a recipe for burnout with or without any of the additional factors outside the comic. It definitely felt to me, regardless of why, that by after the first few sub-acts of Act 6, Hussie was finishing the project out of a sense of obligation, not out of genuine interest anymore.

[@Trashley652]

It would have been amazing if it was "Misali: Never say "act", "intermission" or any number from 1 to 6 ever again" "I will do two of those things."

[@allinory]

I had read homestuck in russian and they replaced r slurs with normal words and I never knew it was so ableist, bless the translators' little hearts

[@Oleg-gt3xw]

its rather that or that russian language doesnt have the r slur (the closest is "умственно отсталый" but it really doesnt feel right)

[@ohsugarhoneyicetea1031]

they did keep the n-word though, i think it was something from dave in like.. 1st act?

[@allinory]

@@ohsugarhoneyicetea1031 я уже такого не помню 🫣 но спорить не буду

[@prismabeth9646]

100% of what i know about homestuck is secondhand, and learning about the girl whose whole joke is no sense of smell, as someone with lifelong anosmia, was Wild

[@Infiniteimpossibilty]

Oh god. The sheer trepidation I felt seeing this in my sub feed. And I *LIKE* homestuck. I think its an exemplar work of something that is somehow all at once good, bad, weird, messy, and just sort of fun for the large majority of it. Im not particularly interested in the moral value judgements being made surrounding it, but I'm also just so excited to see what sort of weird minutia you decide to pick apart.

[@cursedalien]

When I read Homestuck in 9th grade, I honestly thought that the hemocastes being biological was a reference to eusocial insects, since trolls have some other traits taken from eusocial insects (they start life as grubs, they live in hives). It's clear that they aren't *currently* eusocial, since individuals have distinct personalities, but they likely had a eusocial ancestor that was recent enough for there to still be remnants of that in troll biology. As an allegory for humans and social commentary, it's Bad. But as alien worldbuilding, it's fascinating.

[@OlleLindestad]

Yeah, this part of the video seemed strangely single-minded to me. Exploring real-life issues through allegory is only one possible motivation for writing about fictional worlds or societies. Another, just as valid angle is to simply explore what might be or might have been. What would an alien society look like where there were biological castes with different characteristics and abilities? Not saying Homestuck explores this in much detail with the trolls, but it certainly seems to have been the direction Hussie approached it from, rather than allegory.

[@Envy_May]

this is the most i've ever _actually learnt_ about homestuck

[@doloresmeatrestauranteater1451]

i'll admit that this channel's... variety of content has alienated me on occasion but honestly i wouldn't have it any other way. i don't know what i'll get from you next but who cares when i already know it's gonna be good.

[@flamingpi2245]

I’m still waiting for regular solids part 2: 4 dimensional electric boogaloo

[@youdont12know]

I've watched many video essays on homestuck, but my favourites are always the ones where the creators still clearly on some level love homestuck, even while critiquing it's myriad flaws. This video is clearly that. You and Boogs did a lot more than a homestuck video in 2022 could ever be expected to do, and the effort is appreciated

[@grrotto]

*_You didn't have to give your trollsona a typing quirk but you did,_* I respect that.

[@cardboardhed1967]

He's a huge linguistics nerd, do you really think he could resist

[@ashleybyrd2015]

I feel like John Egbert finding out that Con Air was kind of bad actually. How the hell did I miss this?

[@EmileeAria413]

Oh my god I forgot about that holy shit that is what most Homestucks have been going through ever since the Epilogues came out, huh?

[@dorussecondaccount]

I stopped reading it at that point

[@bookswithike3256]

I mean Homestuck does have a lot of problems, but a few of the things in this video are just Jan's interpretation not textual aspects of the story (Porrim being an allegory for MRAs & the idea that we're supposed to agree with Kankri in the Mituna scene both seem ridiculous to me).

[@nahometesfay1112]

I mean he critiques only two parts of the story... On the other hand there are more issues

[@johnathanegbert9277]

Con Air was _always_ bad. Old me just never realized it.

[@juanj1se]

Actually, the lack of consistency is the best part of this channel

[@roondar6141]

Good video, doesn't really do much for someone who already is into Homestuck, but always nice to hear someone's perspective. I'd recommend the Voxus Let's Read if you'd like to hear voice acting and Homestuck music instead of reading it, it's how I usually go back to the work instead of reading. Hiveswap Friendsim also does a good job of talking about the hemospectrum and how it affects Alternian society more than Homestuck ever could while making some light commentary about how our real world societal structure. And finally Vast Error is a better sequel to Homestuck than the actual sequel if you like Homestuck and want something that continues it's ideas and themes while having it's own voice.

[@harpo8584]

I really like the typing quirk jan Misali uses in Act 5, specifically in the word "uqqestionably"

[@Melecie]

like how this is structured just like the actual webcomic. haven't read it yet, but i'm already reading an extremely long webfiction (the wandering inn) and i don't want to add another extremely long webfiction to my list. also glad how subtitles don't feature the typing quirks because their main purpose is to be readable first and fancy second

[@Thorne-In-Your-Side]

I got all my friends into Homestuck after finding it myself from an Undertale-related rabbit-hole. This was around the start of middle-school for me, and so as you might imagine Homestuck became my personality until, like, some time in Freshman year of highschool when it dawned on me that being *that* level of fandom trash was kind of cringe and that I should maybe tone it the fuck down. I think that the good, interesting, and unique aspects of Homestuck outweigh its bad, problematic, or irritating aspects, though I do understand why that may be different for people who are a bit more overtly targeted by its jokes than I am, or just more sensitive to that kind of content in general. Some people are more empathetic than me, and I think they're probably better people because of it. That being said, I still love Homestuck on a nostalgic level as well as an artistic level, because it's a genuinely fun thing to look at on an art-level: the number of media mixed in or satirized is really interesting, and the amount of strange and unique traits that you *might* see in another story or another medium that are core parts of the design of Homestuck just further sells me on it. It all makes for a story that stands out and, genuinely, will probably change the reader's life. I mean, any story can be re-contextualized with Homestuck components in mind, and 90% of the time it works flawlessly. By which I mean, more specifically, you can assign a class and an aspect to any character based on what you know for a fact about them and genuinely understand them on a deeper level that will allow you to intuit more information about them. And this kinda sucks, because that's a really cool thing to attach to an artwork that's basically a perfect metaphorical stand-in for (the social corners of) the internet itself: really neat and cool and fun and quirky, but also never go there because it'll ruin you or leave a lasting mark that won't necessarily be a positive one.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Same, except mine was a little bit more scattered. My 1st fandom was MLP, the was when I was in 4th/ 5th grade and in 6th grade. But when I was in 6th grade and heading into 7th grade, I then got imto undertale. And in 7th grade I got into Creepypastas. And by the time I was in 8th grade my Creepypasta phase was over and I had completely moved on to HS, which was the best decision. And now I'm getting into all sorts of music fanbases, which is funny because I never thought I would ever get into music fandoms.

[@HomeWingGamer]

I remember getting truly hooked on Homestuck back in the day for the worldbuilding involved with SBURB and the class and aspects system and how paradox space still functions. And by far, it's the part of Homestuck that really hasn't been replicated or iterated upon at all since. After seeing its flaws and failings get tore down over the years, it's the one thing that keeps me tethered to this IP, because no other story has tried something quite like it.

[@Drekromancer]

Well said. Thank you for sharing.

[@YashaAstora]

I say that Homestuck's first big failing is the slow sidelining of all the video game aspects and on Sburb in general. The way the comic ground to a halt to focus on random side tangents to characters who are all but explicitly stated to not matter and poorly-handled relationship drama (hello beta kids) makes it a chore to re-read. Homestuck had SO MANY ideas that it just...abandoned.

[@HomeWingGamer]

It feels the fact that SBURB doesn't matter was always meant to be the point of the story in some ways, that at most it's an event in some people's lives that trap entrap them into a destiny and a mythological storyline, and that it just fucks them up not so much for their own benefit but for the benefit of the unseen audience. ...I can't tell how much of this is actually a real conclusion to be pulled through the very unfocused thematics of Homestuck, or the copium of someone who lived through the pauses and Act 7, trying to piece it all together in my head.

[@Tzizenorec]

The initial focus on SBURB could have made a great story all by itself, and the Jack storyline that replaced that was pretty good too. As interesting as Lord English was as a thought experiment, the emphasis on him in the latter part of the story kind of made the whole thing fall flat. He was the demon of "help I can't figure out how to end my story." (As evidenced by the fact that Lord English was ultimately defeated _because the story was over,_ not the other way around.)

[@Tesl8n]

You know, for the fact this was a joke tier on your patreon that you never expected to get, this is a pretty good video about homestuck. You're right that HS is so many things that some of it inevitably has to be good. I hadn't ever thought of it in those terms. I think in the end Hussie tried to do too much with it, and between the burn out and the narrative overpromising, they probably couldn't ever deliver. But, there's still something there. Honestly, Act 1-3's use of computer science concepts as video game mechanics as narrative tools is one of the most intriguing things to me to this day, and it really appealed to my in-college-for-CS brain when I read it. The Fetch Modi are incredible, and I really wanted to see them pushed to their limit. I really wish I could get something that did that justice! And the same with the classpects, and the time travel mechanics, and quite a few other world building things. There's just so much stuff in there that becomes introduced, is super interesting and tickles your brain as a reader, and then just gets slowly dropped or pushed to the background, and it's one of the roughest parts of being a HS fan. The only things that really felt fully utilized were the things dialogue related - quirks, character interactions, that kind of stuff. On the one hand, it feels like Hussie could have written a VN and gotten all the best parts of HS without the worst parts of HS, but then... it wouldn't be HS. That cruft is an integral part of the experience. Idk. I'm glad we have it, in the end, even if I wish I ended up liking it.

[@ahomestucker]

u made an entire mspfa for a video about homestuck's worldbulding holy fuck. finally exactly what i want in a video honestly its my fav part of hamstunk. heck all the characters, heck hussie, the world is just so off the wall yet with internal logic and shit and theres just so many complicated stupid wonderful ideas thrown together

[@BlueDavrial]

I always thought Mituna was *supposed* to be a sad, tragic character, and other people finding his situation funny were supposed to be seen as the ones in the wrong.

[@kood995]

Right? I love Mituna and felt really bad for him because of all the bullying he was receiving. Just leave him alone and let him ride his skateboard!

[@quixoticaxolotl2060]

yeah, same

[@sasentaiko]

Yeah, and that goes for most of this group of 12 trolls. From internalized oppression to performative nonsense, there are real issues in activist spaces--behaviors that tear apart our solidarity and keep us from our goals. Homestuck took the time to literally walk us through these problematic behaviors so that we wouldn't fall into these traps.

[@AtticusKarpenter]

It is. Nothing in comic position him as a character who we "shouldn't like". And fandom love Mituna.

[@iantaakalla8180]

For all of Kankri’s faults, he sort of stood up for Mituna once. Given how Kankri views his position as a person caring about all rights, Mituna really is a tragic character if even Kankri recognizes his plight.

[@ShaunCloudSwain]

Homestuck. It's hard to go back, sometimes painful even, to start again and read the first four acts that made me fall in love, the fifth act that sky-rocketed all expectations and the sixth act that felt like a long drawn out wet fart. I loved every second of it. Until I didn't. That's all I can really say now.

[@Graknorke]

I'm kind of surprised that at no point did you ever really try and talk about what Homestuck is _about_. I think probably one of the more interesting things about it is its take on destiny and storytelling and how those things aren't even particularly different. Alpha timelines and circumstantial simultaneity and Scratch's whole deal especially with Hussie and the general way narration is integrated as part of the story and the retcon stuff and, I'm starting to realise why maybe that might have pushed it a bit over half an hour.

[@tsrenis]

Much like Seinfeld, Homestuck is a webcomic about nothing

[@Graknorke]

@@tsrenis wrong it's about kids playing a game together

[@tsrenis]

@@Graknorke No it's Seinfeld

[@Graknorke]

@@tsrenis my girlfriends always saying she can't hang out with me because she has to do "homework" for "school". what's the deal with that!

[@Jakoshark220]

Y'know, I'm surprised by your mention of deaths always having no stakes. Every single time a character died I was absolutely torn, [Spoilers!] especially in the place of things like Nepeta and Feferi. And death certainly does still have stakes, at least in a narrative sense; the prior mentioned killed characters often lose a great deal of agency within the story, whether that is directly influencing the plot or just influencing other characters' arcs. Nepeta's unrequited relationship with Karkat is rife with potential for giving her a greater, deeper arc about maintaining friendships in the face of unrequited love, especially when Karkat never really took responsibility to treat her with respect and say 'no' in a mature way, at least a mature enough way for a teenager. Similarly, Feferi's falling out with Eridan would have justified a good continuation of her arc while dead, and given her some personal emotional conflict about being unable to help her friends when it seemed to matter most. However, in place of these, nepeta and feferi just kind of become... jokes? Haha it's funny that they are a sprite and don't get actual dialogue?? And don't even get me started on Tavros. Holy shit he is the most disrespectful disabled person's representation ever and his robot legs stuff and post-death arc with Vriska wants me to rip my hair out. Speaking of trolls, thanks for mentioning the Karkat's view on troll society thing. Really, I've always read him as being conditioned by imagery and messages in troll society that made him *want* to be a legislacerator, but seeing him not do a whole lot of hating on those troll systems of oppression was baffling. This kind of coincides with my point on death, since he spends little to no on-screen or even alluded time with any of his dead friends, which kind of makes him less like the socially-conscious, platonic-relationship-focused nature of a Knight of Blood than he ought to be? Like, it's heavily implied how much he loves his friends, but a lot of his demeanor and dialogue even in the latter parts of the story do not show this that much, when "scared little kid putting on a tough and harsh face to hide his vulnerable emotions about wanting to accept and be accepted by his friends" is so goddamn chock-full of pathos that I still love the character in spite of those hiccups of execution. Fantastic video, thank you so much for absolutely clowning on the dancestors' inclusion and how utterly godawful A6I3 is. I'll be patiently waiting for the rhythm heaven remix of explore.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Same, I remember being so shocked when Vriska died because Vriska was the 1st time where I actually hated a character, hated them less, started to grow on them, and then being absolutely torn apart when they eventually died. And then they threw all of that out the window when the retcon happened.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

Also according to Hussie's commentary, Nepeta was meant to be a parallel to Jade. Which makes Karkat's crush on Jade a little bit ironic.

[@theMoporter]

Homestuck kept doing this thing where would keep writing characters who were intended as simple jokes, legitimise them with a personality and an internal life and relationships, then axe them like they were still just joke characters that nobody should care about.

[@Eegal-Ayed]

Multiple times in my life I have been annoyed that no one could explain what homestuck was when I asked. I now understand why they could not possibly ever explain it. Thank you for explaining it before "reviewing" it lol

[@nicholasschmidt2864]

Conducting this retrospective as a parody fan adventure is the right amount of meta when approaching this subject. Would have loved if this video was another hour longer, there is really so much to talk about with this godforsaken webcomic. The death and resurrection cycle is a hard truth. Every character with a dream self "dies" at least once, with multiple characters dying with the potential for a resurrection or two after that. It's really hard to keep the tension up in a setting where death is easily avoided with inconsistent rules. None of the main cast stay dead, the only casualties had barely fleshed out personalities, and even then you could make an argument that Equius, Nepeta, and Feferi are resurrected as sprites. God Tier is a great way to ground deaths with clearly stated rules, but even that gets circumvented by stuff like Life players just getting to resurrect someone, or time travel garbage, or the Dream Bubbles which state an infinite amount of the same people can exist. Eridan is probably the only person who dies and stays dead, but he still reappears as a ghost or in Dream Bubbles, but thankfully doesn't talk. God, people would joke that Hussie was as bad as JRR Martin at killing beloved characters, but at least when Martin killed people in GoT, he had the courtesy to keep most of them dead. Typing quirks definitely does force you to write characters with a unique voice, even when you strip away the quirk itself. It's a very cool literary technique you pick up on if you ever try it. Also agree with the hemospectrum. What could have been an interesting commentary on caste systems and racism was just handwaved away as being an inherent truth. Low bloods are shorter lived but more numerous and prone to psychic powers, higher bloods are extremely long-lived and generally resilient. Would have preferred if that was pseudoscience the trolls believed but wasn't actually true, but no, turns out Her Imperious Condescension is actually thousands of years old. I agree so hard that Act 6 Act 3 with its new characters are probably the worst part of the entirety of Homestuck. Which is saying a lot, because there are some pretty bad parts in the latter half. It's the awkward introduction of so many characters who ultimately... didn't matter, since the story would end not much later and most characters don't even reappear. To my recollection, Meenah and Aranea were the only characters who ever do anything outside of that act, and had already been lightly introduced anyway. Trolls were already stereotypes of internet personalities (the leetspeaker, the ragey all caps guy, the chronic roleplayer who was deeply into shipping), but having an overly sexual girl in an Asian school uniform, an insufferable SJW, and a person with a clearly stated mental condition was just cringe. It was so cringe then and it's even more cringe now. (Also, personally I thought Porrim and Kankri's men's rights arguments was just feminism with the genders flipped, because the troll world is ruled by an empress. Did not realize it was repeating MRA, I thought it was a joke at the worldbuilding.) Aranea uses the game media this act was presented in to... vomit hundreds of words worth of exposition and backstory to the reader because Hussie was too lazy to put it in elsewhere. That point, along with the constant long pauses between content, was definitely where I stopped reading Homestuck as a fan and started following it out of morbid curiosity. You could have cut the dumb game and had Aranea and Meenah's characters speak for themselves later, but then Hussie wouldn't have had the opportunity to make fun of SJWs.

[@xaklor4283]

spoilers for the ending if you haven't read it yet and care about spoilers: another thing I thought was worth talking about (but I understand why you didn't) is how homestuck just doesn't really "end" properly. the ending doesn't explain things very well and it doesn't even come close to tying up all the loose ends. it definitely shows a "happy" ending for most of the characters still involved, but how exactly that happened wasn't addressed at all. the fact that it doesn't have a proper satisfying ending makes it even harder to appreciate handful of good things homestuck achieves narratively. this has kind of soured my view on homestuck even though I was super into it early on. the ending to hussie's earlier work Problem Sleuth makes me want to read it again, but the ending to homestuck leaves me feeling empty and confused. I attempted to read some of these "epilogues", but really they're still just a continuation of the story. I gave up after it became super clear that this wasn't going to end after all. dunno what's been done with it since, but it can't have made up for the fact that this story really should have ended by now.

[@guy-sl3kr]

Yeah homestuck is about the journey, not the destination. Because there is no destination lol

[@Drekromancer]

@@guy-sl3kr I agree with both of you. I think that was part of the metanarrative he was going for, though. If the characters aren't characters, but people, then they don't have endings. They just continue. It's an avant-garde take, and I have tremendous artistic respect for Hussie's attempt to subvert narrative tropes in that fashion. That said, I also resent him for robbing us of the ending we truly deserved. I felt that hollow feeling, too. And maybe that's the point. I'm open to that being part of the intended impact from this experimental piece of media. But it also makes me feel disappointed, and wonder about what could have been.

[@theMoporter]

I fell off during one of the last hiatuses and nothing has ever compelled me to want to finish it. Entropy took so much of a toll on the plot and the character writing.

[@wiiabee]

as an ex-homestuck that also has incredibly mixed feelings and memories about it and doesn't really interact with homestuck anymore for pretty much the exact reasons you covered in act 7 (and also the arg drama that went down in 2019), this was a JOY to watch. i've personally been always attached to the SBURB land/quest + god tier systems because of how surprisingly well thought-out they are as a metaphor for self-actualization, plus i still think it's fun to think about and play around with from time to time. i won't get super into it here but it's really cool to see that you developed a similar passion for homestuck's alchemy system! that was something that i've never really understood while reading and a crash course on the topic was very much appreciated @_@ ...also nice frog fractions footage :] it was really fun getting to see all the little inside jokes + references that this channel's gathered over time (including the kay(f)bop(t) fetch modus, lmao) seems like i'll be checking out boogs' stuff!

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

What drama that went down in 2019?

[@wiiabee]

@@kittykittybangbang9367 what pumpkin published a website called skaianet which contained some hidden text files, written by hussie (who has since apologized for publishing them), detailing an alternate history of earth for homestuck. i haven't reread them at all (or even finished reading them to begin with), but from what i can remember the contents were..... pretty fucking bad to say the least!! i won't detail them here but there's a google doc compilation of all the files out there somewhere, since the original files were obviously taken down after the fact

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

@@wiiabee could you give me a link please, I would like to read it for myself

[@zenitharts7142]

What always stuck with me was the general mechanics of how the game was played. Taking all alternate universes and whatnot out of the picture, it acts like the most self-indulgent role playing game you could possibly have. Just you and your group of friends playing a game that molds a unique experience for each player. Just thinking over all the possibilities has kept me thinking back on Homestuck till this day. Just look around your own bedroom. What combinations of items could you make with what you have? I could alchemize my electronics with my earrings, creating some high-tech sci-fi communicators. Or maybe I could just have some fun and fuse the books in the house to create an eldritch horror cookbook. Even more, what about my strife specibus and fetch modus? What weapon would I use to defend myself? How would I create a unique inventory system that works for me? Your imagination is truly the limit here. Despite some of Homestuck's sometimes... interesting characters, some of these game mechanics are a very good way to flesh out their personalities. It's honestly a pretty fun writing exercise if you're having trouble characterizing your own characters. Plop their house into Sburb and let them loose. Are they going to be practical with their alchemy, or will they try for expensive god items at the earliest chance? What would their planet be? What's their God Tier? (Two things I was surprised you didn't mention much of, but they aren't exactly needed when talking about Homestuck lmao).

[@user-qn5fz2lo3e]

The mechanics from the early acts are one of the parts of homestuck i still genuinely like, so it makes me happy to see someone cover it! Man the silliness and complexity for complexity's sake of the sylladex system has stuck with me for so long

[@hannahbriarly4192]

I don't mind not knowing what your next video will be about ever because it's always something you're interested in or passionate about and that really shows in the effort you put in

[@ickykid94]

The recap of alchemy felt so nostalgic. I yearn for a game with an impossibly complex crafting system like that. This whole video was amazing, and thank you for taking me down this cringey bit of memory lane

[@gg1k]

I feel like you could make something screwey like that with modern ai weirdness (like those webapps that generate art & things but just embedded in a game)

[@bendonatier]

I have never read Homestuck. I will likely never read Homestuck. Many of your videos will have no practical effect on my life. This is the video that got me to finally sub. You are one of the strangest, yet most dedicated creators on this platform, never stop.

[@superpandamoon]

The constant state of agony I live in of knowing that from top to bottom Act 6 Intermission 3 and all the trolls within were a mistake that should not have happened, but also having a handful of them being some of my favorite characters in homestuck exactly for how terrible they all are. I don’t want to like Kankri trust me. I think for them, like most things in homestuck, I remember them as the much better written versions that live in my head. And for this property I think that is a good way to exist lol.

[@youranforit]

im so glad you talked about alchemy, its one of the funnest parts of homestuck.

[@JimProton]

I'm a bit late in commenting this, but thank you for making this video. I started reading Homestuck because of this video and have been enjoying the ride the entire time, I laughed and I've cried, it's really quite good. I feel like this is going to be one of those core memories to look back on in the future and I thank you immensely for helping to start that journey. I hope this does well in communicating my gratitude for your hard work giving a good background on the concepts while keeping it vague enough for people to newly experience without major spoilers or anything. Thank you big time, I appreciate you introducing me to such a cool story :)

[@zenzenulous2243]

this is the first video I’ve actually seen from you and I am not disappointed I didn’t know a Homestuck styled Homestuck discussion was something I needed but I apparently needed it.

[@ajshitshed]

this was awesome! it highlights the ups and downs of homestuck really greatly. also i love the artwork

[@andrew23456able]

absolutely incoherent. i understood literally nothing. 10/10 loved every moment of it

[@CookieFonster]

this is legitimately such an awesome video. and i know, i love homestuck as much as you do (which is to say a love-hate relationship)

[@elizabethb4168]

I knew nothing about Homestuck going into this, at the beginning of the video I thought, "huh, this sounds like it's weird and has some really funny and interesting concepts, cool!" Now that I've finished the video, I don't think I ever want to read anything from Homestuck cuz what the actual heck. However, I will probably watch this video again, cuz the video was very enjoyable. Thank you jan misali!

[@omnipresentmicroorganism9692]

21:21 The pause after that conveys a depth of pain I am eternally thankful is not even mentioned here.