Homestuck Is Good, Actually

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you everyone for watching these Homestuck videos I spent so much time making. I really appreciate the kind things most of you had to say. At the end of the video, I say how I'm thinking about streaming, yeah? The date is this Sunday at 11 AM CST. If you liked this video, please consider watching: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2KxgoCDgayFhdU

[@alexanderduke3992]

The fact that homestuck is often reduced to an "lmao 2000's wtf was that" timepiece and not a literal flawed masterpiece of literary analysis, deconstruction of meta themes and coming of age modern creation myth is astounding to me

[@kylemarshiku]

Yeah, if a piece of media is adored by children, girls, or The Gays TM, a lot of people won't even give it consideration

[@H4WK7UN4]

gay made me homestuck

[@mahpell7173]

@H4WK7UN4 Sounds like PTSD.

[@tribaltiki8770]

Job had one bro

[@blevenox1916]

Homestuck is one of those things that I don’t think I’ll ever get away from. It always manages to come back with a vengeance. One that I’m always more than happy to accept. I’ve made ocs. Met friends. Had great times. I even owe it to helping me connect with my spouse who I’ve been with for many years now. To me it just has this way of connecting people. I owe it to my stepbrother for introducing this wild piece of media to me.

[@kylemarshiku]

That's great! All stories must come to an end, but the truly great pieces of media will stick with you forever. Homestuck will always be a part of my life, even if I go 20 years without engaging in it.

[@kylemarshiku]

Weird to leave this here, but I'm just gonna say, if your defense for a guy being fascist is "he wasn't allowed to be an official member of the fascist party", I think you played yourself.

[@reillocb]

2:22 It aint even the Homestuck part of the video yet but it's always nice to hear people who are aware of how omnipresent biases are.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you! Feels likes some people narrow the term bias to just mean "biases I don't agree with".

[@dice6719]

as someone getting into homestuck now this video is actually such a good dissection of what i still love about homestuck now! its so emotional to me, even though i do think it drags and the epis arent for me-- im glad it makes me feel those things! im glad it has things i don't enjoy seeing in it! i was already aware that i was queer when i first read it, but it made me more in tune with that part of myself, it gave me words for things i was already feeling that i didnt quite have yet. ive met my best friends through homestuck fanworks and roleplays and talking about the characters. Its genuinely one of the most fun ive had in a fandom space in awhile. this and your homestuck recap are what im sending to my boyfriend to try and get him onto the homestuck boat with me. thank you so much for making this. peace out :)

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you very much! Im glad Homestuck helped you reflect on yourself as it did for me, and hope your bf likes the videos!

[@kingofcozyness8751]

Homestuck curbs my anxiety. So yah. Please enjoy Hussies work forever more. Editedbecuseofmymotherfuckinggrammar

[@FunkMcLovin]

homestuck made me gay

[@kylemarshiku]

based

[@xwixy9994]

homestuck made more gay than i already was... and i'm not sure how it works

[@Jack-lo5me]

Homestuck DIDNT make me gay, but it did make me question. So win win.

[@Babka_V_Kedah]

Homestuck made me trans

[@samanthasaysmoon11]

@@FunkMcLovin hi fungus mcmuffin

[@twZera413]

I love me some Homestuck positivism, it's surprisingly rare in the modern internet and it's really a shame, because it really was an interesting experience for all of us when we were younger, and almost all my current friends are either people I met through our local Homestuck fandom, or friends I met through my Homestuck friends. I honestly miss the community we had back in the day, there was a sense of kinship I just don't see in most modern fandoms.

[@kylemarshiku]

Yeah I agree. Im also in the Fallout modding community, and man that place is swarming with libertarians and tech bros.

[@xwixy9994]

i'm so glad there are more and more videos on homestuck's strengths as a media piece for someone who got into it after hs finished and still found it fun and entertaining (it held me for two straight years an with my adhd it's telling lmao) it's validating anyway i'm still on the intro so let's goooo

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you!

[@Grencham]

My favorite aspect of Homestuck is that the characters within face overwhelming odds, every session of SBURB that we see is impossible in some capacity or another. At first the characters stack the deck in their favor in relatively mundane ways in terms of the game, i.e. taking advantage of their dream selves as extra lives and god tiering. Then there's things that fall within the bounds of the game but that maybe aren't technically intended like Aradia prototyping the frog head leading to easier underlings and scratching. There are effectively cheat codes, with Terezi giving John access to equipment he shouldn't have yet. But I think maybe the most impressive way that the characters break the game is by literally hopping through realities to get to the alternate timelines created by the scratches. It's fitting in a way that HSBC was abandoned/retired only to be picked up once more recently. Its like the story itself now is refusing to quit, changing the rules of engagement, and overcoming the odds to reach its goal. Our heroes (and villains) are splintered and hurt, more than ever before, and they still find ways to circumvent increasingly impossible odds, even in our own reality. I know that the video gameyness of Homestuck is a REALLY basic lens to view it through, and in many ways it's really just a plot device, but it is so god damn cool and nobody will convince me otherwise

[@bananaxis]

I already know this video is going to be like 4 hours... as a reader that jumped ship sometime during an act 6 hiatus, i'm so ready

[@kylemarshiku]

2 and half lol but hope you enjoy!

[@PhoenixFlame321]

46:00 Just like how IRL human love (Which corresponds to Troll Matespritship) can be toxic and abusive in so many ways, so can all other quadrants, ESPECIALLY Kismesitude. I imagine the most healthy and ideal form of kismesitude would be like having a rival that truly respects you, but never compliments you. Kismesitude is NOT supposed to be comforting nor directly supporting, more like having someone that CHALLANGES you to be better, stronger, like mutually hyping eachother in a very aggressive, very tsundere way. Kismesis that actively tear eachother apart in a destructive way would be an unhealthy version of the quadrant, and since Troll society itself is riddled with fucked-up and harmful cycles of abuse, those are unfortunately rather common.

[@kylemarshiku]

I think that's a valid take on it. Just, for me, the importance aspect is the power balance. That's where abuse can manifest. And yes, that is true of matespritships as well. In real life, power imbalances in relationships can often lead to abuse as well.

[@candy9264]

i love how its just the felt and then dirk LMAOO

[@kylemarshiku]

Dirk at the gay club like "Just leprechauns, again?!"

[@Frddy_-sh8so]

we are homestucking so hard right now

[@WalbogzWasTaken]

What an amazingly lovely heartfelt video, great work. Honestly.

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you!

[@huntedexp8142]

I dont know how much I "grew up" with homestuck, I was maybe 16 when I read it fully and I must have gotten in JUST as it was ending, because I remember when I finished the epilouges came out pretty soonafterwards, and it took me a hot minute to actually read. Anyway, as someone who wasnt there for any of the pauses, post act 5 I enjoyed more, for everyone saying that it got worse, it didn't, it just got more convoluted and in my opinion, interesting. Bias exists everywhere and people dont like change, but it DID make homestuck what it is today. and I for one am still enjoying beyond canon, and am hopeful for haveswap act 3, we are still getting tesers on occaision. best hours long homestuck video essay released in the last 7 hours at least.

[@kylemarshiku]

7 hours? Man I got some competition! Thanks for watching, and it's nice to hear someone going against the grain and repping Act 6.

[@DopplesGryndthloggle]

I'd say don't be too worried that the HSBC are going for a 100% fan pleasing route. They did a reddit ama where they hard confirmed June Egbert and James Roach has said in multiple interviews that the story is already plotted out with no desire for fandom influence on major plot points (also if they wanted to please people they would have canned HS2 and started again given the controversial elements)

[@otherlego]

Trust me they’re definitely not trying to please the fans lmao

[@kylemarshiku]

I think people are a lot more trusting of what creators say than I am. I've read a lot of what James has said, but I still think there's a heavy incentive to please the audience; it's just a matter of will they do it. This happens in many fandoms, like Bethesda glorifying the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout to please military fanboys, but I feel the incentive with Homestuck at the moment to be strong.

[@Rynamony]

Homestuck in 2025? HELL YES

[@lochlanhanham8308]

Fun fact about the aro & ace experience and homestuck romance. The term 'queerplatonic' actually post-dates 'moirailagence'. The thread in which 'queerplatonic' was coined was posted on christmas eve of 2010, but troll romance was explained in August the same year.

[@kylemarshiku]

How much we get in residuals jk : P

[@lilacbranches]

Just finished your recap. I can't wait!

[@justwolf3937]

Okay while I overall enjoy the video there's ~4 things I vehemently disagree with you on/would have preferred you alrer your word choices for; 1. Honestly I believe it's actually kind of important the cast be a group of teenagers, the entire story isn't just "coming of age" it's literally about growing up and seeing how the world unfurls out from a previously sheltered existence, the characters being cringe teenagers who can be dumb and make stupid choices is intrinsic to the story, Vriska being an abused kid lashing out at the world becomes a lot less sympathetic if she's 22, same with John being so naive as to believe Terezi when she tells him to basically explode himself with a jetpack for a laugh, them being a bunch of idiot teenagers in over their heads with their only friends being found via a chat room is kind of important to the story as a whole. 2. Honestly I feel like the whole thing with Guy Fieri, ICP, and Obama is mitigated by the fact the entire premise is over the top and stupid, it's not Libel, it's not Slander, the comic literally said "in a world where alien fish hitler tried to terraform the earth into her homeworld in the name of an all powerful Billiards themed Time God, Guy Fieri and the ICP would be her minions", no one is going to actually take that seriously nor believe the actual people would do such things, same with Obama being a Sburb player, was that joke in mildly poor taste? Sure! But it wasn't Slander. 3. This is less a specific issue with the video and more a "hey, tip for next time", Vaush isn't leftist, he's a right wing grofter that co-opts leftist language to fuel antisemitic and transphobic conspiracy theories, he's basically 3 knocks off wearing a red arm and and waving his arm in the air like he really really cares if you catch my meaning. 4. I'd advise against using the term Wokescold as that's been effectively turned into a nazi dogwhistle to apply to basically "any leftist with a harsh tone" and in general is in bad taste. Once again I loved the video otherwise these are just sticking point I personally found distract from the overall video and wanted to give some constructive feedback, keep up the good work

[@ouch-productions]

your points 1 and 2 are my main issues with the video too. its good that op mentioned getting into homestuck as an adult because it explains why they would be more partial to a homestuck with adult characters. but as someone who got into homestuck at age 13 or 14 it is so so so important that the characters are also that age because despite how silly and nonsensical the story is it reflects character attributes that a 13 or 14 year old would see in their peers. yes the characters are weird and bad and gross at times but that makes it all the more realistic and relatable because thats how teens are!! they lash out and do bad things and theyre confused and scared!! it REALLY would not work with adult characters but i respect ops opinion, especially considering the perspective of a queer second adolescence. having guy fieri and the icp and obama portrayed like that in the story is really not a big deal like op says. none of these people are going to care about what a silly webcomic has to say about them, and art has always portrayed celebrities (both accurately and inaccurately) for as long as art has been around. thats like saying saturday night live is slander and libel. it's really not a big deal. overall still a good video though and these being like the 2 biggest issues with it in a 2.5 hour long video does speak to its quality and generally good takes

[@dumpsterDeity]

Vaush isn't a right winger. He's a leftist, and no he's neither antisemitic nor transphobic (unless you count being anti-Israel's genocide of Palestinians as anti-Semitism). I was subjected to a lot of anti-trans arguments from people I know, and watching Vaush's debates with transphobes are what gave me the confidence to stand for myself. He was relentless and never gave any transphobic argument a pass and always had an answer for it. I consider him a major reason I was finally able to come to terms with my trans identity and come out to my friends.

[@CloverNoir]

THANK YOU... I was thinking about the first two points too!!! Funny how they didn't reply to this at all XD

[@brandondarnell1150]

HYPE HYPE HYPE GOTTA SHARE THIS WITH MY HOMESTUCK FRIENDS

[@kylemarshiku]

Please do! Thank you : D

[@RoseIsPostingCringe]

You're right and you should say it. Homestuck is good. It's helped me through a lot, these characters, their growth, the epilogues and even Homestuck^2 gave me beacons in the dark. I haven't caught up with HS^2 but every time I see anything cross my dash on Tumblr I always check it out. It's just, so nice to see an era where people are enjoying things like this unabashedly in such numbers again. It makes me happy, and inspires me to enjoy things myself

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you, that's very kind!

[@CreatorProductionsOriginal]

**sigh** I guess it’s time

[@Kitune07]

I'm so sorry

[@kylemarshiku]

Hey thanks for having an open mind! Hope you like the video!

[@CreatorProductionsOriginal]

@@kylemarshiku I ate this vid up, raw 3 to 4 hours of straight watching it (as I also saw the full recap) Waiter, more please

[@mahpell7173]

@@CreatorProductionsOriginal You can't fight the Homestuck, kid. It is already here.

[@CreatorProductionsOriginal]

@@mahpell7173 So, it really is now STUCK with me while I’m at my HOME?

[@Sriu_Bp]

Dude as someone who literally ended yesterday this was really informative and a good re think(?) Of all the history in general even if i didn't read homestuck ^2 (I'm so glad it came back) and thanks really i'll come back to see the video with more context when i read homestuck two or the epilogues (again thanks and it really was great see this video pop up because of the year i didn't see too much content and this showing up was a reminder that there's still people who like it) LOVED THE VIDEO!

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you that's very kind! And yeah I'd definitely recommend giving the Epilogues and sequel a fair shake. Not enough people do!

[@EurypteridFossil]

its tiring seeing people act like homestuck is an awful piece of the past while they reclaim literally every “cringe” piece of media that was popular alongside it. It’s really odd to see that mentality so solidified in people who haven’t read it and people who did read it. Why have people allowed the mentality of 2012 tumblr fans make their interest something to be always ashamed of

[@pyropaintbrush]

2:04:40 Broadway Karkat... now there's a name I haven't heard in years... 🚬

[@dominicpierotti281]

i am almost surprised by you not bringing up Equius during the first critique or Gamzee during the irony section but i suppose they are side jokeish characters

[@kylemarshiku]

Equius because he engages in racial fetishism as a 13-year-old child I presume? Yeah I agree that that is *weird*, but I felt the comic acknowledged that, you know? He was meant to be off-putting, and personally I think he grows throughout Act 5 until his death, as identified by how he initially refused to roleplay with Nepeta but by the end, it's the last thing he ever does. As for Gamzee, I don't think irony has that much to do with his character. I think the comic is textually very anti-Gamzee, and Gamzee defenders are fighting an uphill battle.

[@dominicpierotti281]

@@kylemarshiku more the Horse thing for Equius but i more mean Gamzee not liking the fact that he(and what he believes in) is fictional. something along the lines of Deadpool being unkillable because there is a squeal but if i make ppl hate this story it might get canceled. it's a bit of an inference from how the power he is given by the story is differ so much from the others.

[@dominicpierotti281]

i dont think i am defending Gamzee here just that he has important things going on with him the more you dig in to Homestucks depictions of it's own fandom. things that don't get sort as easily as Caliborn's deal

[@IAMFANTROLL]

​@@kylemarshikusomething important about equius Is that he feels like a number of people I met early on when I was first joining the internet, he's as much a victim of exposure to and normalization of these things as he is an aggressor and perpetrator but one who kinda created himself as he is. He's a bold character, and one of the few I think had a completed character arc within the comic.

[@kylemarshiku]

Ah alright, yeah I can get behind a lot of that. I do think Gamzee is quite a villainous character. He was raised believing in his juggalo religion, but then he radicalized upon being shown evidence by Dave that implied it was fake, i.e. a crisis of faith. Gamzee then goes to what's called Forcing the End, something that cults do when they rationalize the only way for their prophecies to come true is to make them come true. So he sets out to make his Mirthful Messiahs real with Calliope and Caliborn. As for Equius, there's more I could say. He was undeniably a racist and a creep at the beginning, but yeah, he was in many ways doing what he felt society expected of him. His arc has him growing beyond the societal rules and attempting to save his comrades. I like to point out how he eventually roleplays with Nepeta despite refusing when he was introduced.

[@tomatostarz]

thank u for being honest with homestuck like its not perfect but that dosent mean its not GOOD

[@kylemarshiku]

No problem, thanks for watching!

[@ouch-productions]

amazing video op it is so rare to see content made with so much love for homestuck out in the wild here on youtube! this comic changed my life and lots of peoples lives and its nice that people still care about it in the year of our lord 2025, it really speaks to what a masterpiece homestuck is that it stuck with people for coming up on 15 years.

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you, that's very kind

[@tnttime1]

homestuck was enough of a legendary piece for me to find the song gold pilot in 2019 and remember the karkat profile pictures and comic con disasters. read the entire story because i wanted to know where the song gold pilot came in and also liked old internet stuff similar to off, one shot, yume nikki and funny pizza land. im glad there is a fandom left to enjoy and that there are updates in beyond cannon and the fan works made like vast error or kitty quest, its alive though burning quietly and im proud i got to be a part of it at all even if it is at its end.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thanks for watching, and yeah, I'm glad it hasn't been forgotten

[@DankoAkiyamaFR]

Thank you for this amazing video, your analysis is very interesting and made me understand a lot of nuances that I often overlooked about Homestuck For me, it's undeniable that Homestuck played a huge role in making me the person I am today and I will never forget about this masterpiece This video just gave me the will to go back to it with a more mature approach. As a French person, I was pretty much oblivious to the political stuff about USA at the time, but now I understand what was the "toxicity" the community was actually accused of (in France, Homestuck was just a niche and for the fans, the most toxic behaviors were about cosplayers or harassments by fans eager to make Homestuck known better). To be fair, in France, the only reason why people never read Homestuck is because the french version is not complete and because of the length of the story, which is a way better image. Of course though, I got harassed by a few right wing Americans that couldn't understand me just loving Homestuck. As a Trans person, I actually never understood that Homestuck had trans messages to it when reading it, and I realized it way after I started transitioning, and I would love to see it evolving in what is to come next! I'M SO EXCITED FOR HOMESTUCK^2!! Even if the community was toxic, some messages were shaky and I was sometimes unable to understand some messages because of the language barrer, I am happy to have grown with Homestuck and as a Dummy! x3

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you, that's very kind! Hope you enjoy your revisit into Homestuck. Sorry the French version wasn't fully translated. Honestly one of the most tragic things about language barriers to me is how they limit the transference of art across cultures. This is how I feel when I think of how much good anime there must be that's never been translated (okay a lot of it is probably trash though). Also lol at the Dummy bit. That was probably one of the edgier jokes I did in this video, but I'm glad people have taken it in the spirit it was intended : )

[@tigerbear5845]

Since finished the video from my first comment. 59:24 Alright, got to stop you right there as there was a Homestuck Beyond Canon Reddit Q&A when the comic was re-launched, and they straight up confirmed that June Egbert wasn’t just going to still happen, but it was always the plan even before the Toblerone incident. (Though they consider June’s transition a spoiler that Hussie spoiled in the Toblerone incident.) -And now that I’m nearing the end of the video, it’s clearer that this video’s been worked on for so long that it was recorded before Beyond Canon started up again.- And now that I’m watching the part of the video recorded after Beyond Canon returned, I’m pretty sure you don’t know of the Reddit AMA. 1:10:58 going to add that some folks read Porrim as being a “men’s rights activist” analog. (It’s discussed at the end of Jan Misali’s video.) I’m too tired to fact-check/look into it, though, but regardless of the intentions behind Kankri’s character, he just feels boring. I don’t think, “Wow, isn’t it bad when -SJWs- "woke scolds" use their progressiveness as a shield for their unprogressive aspects.” I feel like Andrew Hussie has tied me to a chair so he can soapbox to me about people he didn’t like in 2012. (Especially as Kankri’s constant complaining about slurs makes it feel like Hussie is trying to be defensive of his overuse of the R world in the first half of the comic. Like it just feels like Hussie’s soapboxing to me about how he’s annoyed that people don’t like how he uses the R-word so often in the comic.) 1:56:17 Okay, the more I watch this video, the weirder it gets. Like, I’m an Undertale/Deltarune fan who recently became a Homestuck fan. *_I know_* fandoms often get un-deserved reputations. Harassment is bad, and from what I know of the harassment of HS^2’s team, that was also bad. But it feels weird to argue that Eyepatch Wolf is either some closeted Homestuck fan or hater or whatever, *_just_* because he made a long video essay on Undertale. Like, did not everyone who's an Undertale fan know of Homestuck before playing the game? Idk. This just feels parasocial, and the latter half of this video just feels a bit terminally online. For example, “Fans having an unjust reputation” isn’t a Homestuck thing; it’s a fandom thing. Maybe it’s worse due to Homestuck’s decline in popularity, but idk. There was a lot of hate for UT/DR fans back in the day. And, it feels weird to associate those who say “Stop after Act 5” are all/mostly right-wingers. Some people just think quality-wise that the latter half of Homestuck isn’t as good as the first. (And while I liked Act 6, I do admit that the comic peaked with Cascade and that Act 6 has the lowest point in Homestuck’s quality. (Openbound.) There’s a reason I like to call Homestuck the best and worst thing I’ve ever read because some parts of the comic are the most clever writing I’ve read, and others are Openbound (or as I like to call it, “Andrew Hussie’s soapbox.”) It’s quality is a roller-coaster.) And I don’t think “Kickstarter incompetence” excuses failed Kickstarter just because they didn’t “intend” to scam people. Whether it’s a scam or just the well-intended people running a Kickstarter fucking up, the result’s the same. People losing their money with nothing in return. And just to preference my comic, I’m still interested in reading the Epilogues/Beyond Canon (even if I think the later part of this video felt a bit weird to me.) There are bits of this video that I like, so honestly, I’m just going to move on because discourse/arguing is stupid, and I wish you a good day.

[@kylemarshiku]

Oh this is a lot. I'll address some of it: - June: I understand the new team says they want to still do June. As you saw later, at the time I wrote that bit, the new team wasn't a thing. It took me 1.5 years to make this video + the recap. I also think a promise to make something isn't the same as actually doing it. I hope they do it, but we'll see. - Kankri: I can't deny that Openbound had some reactionary tendencies, but I don't feel Hussie fully fell into the GamerGate rabbit hole. I felt there was some interesting stuff to dissect with Kankri's relationships with Karkat and Porrim and went for it. I don't feel though that Kankri's rants were meant to be an author self-insert though. - John: Super EyePatch Wolf is awesome; I was just pointing out that a man that's as knowledgeable as he, both in general and about Homestuck's sister fandom in particular, wasn't just not mentioning Homestuck accidentally. Given Homestuck's controversial reputation, it would make sense someone such as he might avoid it. I did actually get a chance to ask him after making that bit if he had heard of Homestuck, and his answer was that it came up in his Undertale research, but he felt too ill-informed on it to bring it up and that the video was too long already. - Fan Reputation: This is why I had to specify in the survey section "that I feel is more than what you'd expect in a typical fandom". Unfortunately I didn't survey other fandoms to be able to make that statement incontrovertible. - Stop After Act 5: It's not that they're necessarily all right-wingers, but I do think it is a fundamentally reactionary mindset to hate the new thing. I don't think the prevalence of "Act6/Epilogues/HS2 is bad" is actually representative of quality. - Kickstarter: I think the difference between a failed project and a scam is very important. Thank you for watching, and best of luck to you.

[@tigerbear5845]

@@kylemarshiku Personally, with the June thing, I wish they just didn't tell us that they planned for Trans-Egbert until it actually happened because I'd rather be pleasantly surprised with trans rep than be in a limbo state of being uncertain if it will or won't happen. By soapbox, I didn't mean that Kankri was a Hussie self-insert. I meant that Hussie was using the character of Kankri (and, on a wider scale, Openbound) to soapbox about his dislike of SJWs at the time. Basically, every time Kankri goes on a long rant, it feels like Hussie's in the background whispering, "See, aren't SJWs annoying?" while I'm tired to a chair. Anyway, apologies if the above comment came off as too hostile. I have a habit of writing very long comments.

[@Muse_Of_Time]

For a late straggler to the fandom where I ended up finding out about homestuck during the lockdown.....I absolutely adore it for what it is.....for someone who yearns to live a new life because of being raised by old fashioned parents where vacations and basically having a choose to go where i wanted to go wasnt a thing either to strict parents or "money issue"....this dead fandom has helped me through so much while i wait for my possible brighter future as a gen z (i say gen z because im technically not a zoomer because i didnt use zoom i used google classroom, but argue if u wish) going into adulthood

[@kylemarshiku]

Lol well thank you for watching. I wouldn't say the fandom is dead, but it's definitely a ghost of what it was. Art, however, can persist for as long as humans preserve it, even beyond fandom.

[@user-ih8jc8mk7z]

I really enjoyed this, you do an amazing job at the long form analysis stuff. I'd love to see more from you ^.^

[@kylemarshiku]

Thanks! Unfortunately this took me 1.5 years to make, so more video essays are.... not gonna be soon! >_< Instead I'm trying livestreaming on Sundays

[@user-ih8jc8mk7z]

@ hey, HBomb only puts a video out that often. If you actually WANT to, I'll definitely tune in! Seriously tho, no pressure.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you lol, but I don't have the Patreon support he has. But shrug maybe in a few years I'll be compelled to do one on... I don't know, Danganronpa or something lol

[@Dr-km2yn]

Excellent video, i got into homestuck around 2020 and entered the fandom space when it the internet was especially hostile towards homestuck so this video was really refreshing to watch :)

[@kylemarshiku]

Oh goodness, o7 salute our troops!

[@weredrake]

I normally never comment on videos but I just want to say thank you so so much for making this amazing video. It genuinely felt so heartfelt and from a place of love for homestuck and your analyses and thoughts resonated with how I feel about it too. The outro with the survey made me feel so emotional that it brought me to tears seeing how other people felt about the legacy of homestuck on the broader internet and with their peers as I've struggled for at least a decade almost with those exact feelings of hurt, ridicule, and faux-irony of pretending to "dislike" it while being incredibly hurt in the process. Homestuck is a beautiful and flawed piece of media that I grew up with during my teens and it will forever hold a deep place in my heart as one of my special interests. Thank you again for this incredible video, and I might actually reread the comic again once I can get the unofficial collection to work on my pc haha.

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw that's very kind, thank you! Kira tears up at the end too, so you're not alone! I know it's unrealistic but I wish so bad that this video would go viral just so that when people search for Homestuck discussion videos, it's not all irony poisoned. But 16K's better than I'd have guessed it'd get lol. Anyway, thanks again! Also, the HICU has fixed a lot of the Homestuck website, so that might be worth giving a shot after all.

[@Wedidtheresearch]

I love the question “what does homestuck mean to you” because people have such different responses. Amazing Video that finally treats homestuck like art/another piece of media unlike so many others that treats it as an inherently bad thing.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you, thats very kind : )

[@actualhuman8013]

I grew up with the undertale fandom, but I only read homestuck for the first time with zero spoilers last year. Definitely an experience that changes the way I'll consume any media going forward.

[@kylemarshiku]

Seeing the Undertale fandom develop was like watching a sister grow up. So many distinguishing characreristics and yet they rhymed. Welcome!

[@gummybeef]

Always happy listening to someone talk at length about my favorite thing lol :] good job with this

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you!

[@CreatrixTiara]

I'm partway through the video as i write this but a couple of thoughts: 1. The sprites do come back in the recent updates to Beyond Canon! There's even a scene where Nannasprite contemplates on how Jane turned out and how different she is from her despite being the same person in a sense. 2. I started reading Homestuck as i was graduating grad schoo and right before Game Over, so just before my 30s. It's hilarious to me that Homestuck has an audience that skews super young, because as someone roughly similar in age to Hussie, the target audience at least at the start seemed to be decidedly early Millennial like us. All the pop culture and programming references would be more relevant to 80s/90s kids. So much would have been lost on readers who weren't even born yet when Con Air came out.

[@kylemarshiku]

On 1, I get to that later in the video. On 2, yeah that's true lol. Get this, Kira had never seen Armageddon until like a week ago, and I was like WELL GUESS WHAT WE ARE DOING THIS WEEKEND lol

[@winteriris13]

best movie that actually made me cry real tears. i got into homestuck right as the comics ended, I remember specifically hearing of the epilouges coming out that I had to *avoid at all costs* when tbh I was just reading this comic to impress a girl (before I knew I was a lesbian ironically) it really is a media that you can't go in and not be a little changed coming out the other side, for better and for worse. seeing all the highs and lows of such a huge fandom's history is very bittersweet with how the internet has changed today. i don't think you could ever get such phenomimon to happen like this ever again, and that makes the comic really special to me i find it so wonderful that there are still people interacting as fans, still doing cosplay and fanart, still loving their favourite series and characters when its not "popular" anymore. because that's genuine i think. and i hope the next generation can find those communities and safe spaces and finally have the words to express themselves, to be weird and find others who actually get them i will forever be grateful to my best friend and moirail, the terezi to my dave, who made high school a not so lonely experience (and probably helped speed up a lot of redemption i needed with how shitty i was in middle school lmao)

[@kylemarshiku]

This was a very moving comment, thank you! Im glad to see others actually try to consider the epilogues for what they were and not some imagined thing they could never be.

[@phoebetocchio7801]

y'know. as chronic lurker, i usually don't leave comments on videos, deciding to instead leave my support to creators only as a quiet like and subscription, but i feel like i _have_ to write something out after this video - even if only for myself. it really left me thinking about stuff way more than i expected to, and as such, this is going to be needlessly long, sorry lol firstly, once i began to see the main point of your video and how it's meant to be a sort of counter-narrative to the overwhelming negative one regarding homestuck on the internet, i immediately found myself guilty of it (something that already made me start reflecting on stuff). it's been sort of a thing with me in recent years to regard homestuck, as someone who's mostly left it behind after being a fan for quite a while, to see it with a kind of embarassment. a sort of "hah, homestuck, am i right?" if, prior to this video, i had been asked by someone what i felt about homestuck, i'd likely say something about holding mixed feelings for it and, if elicited to elaborate, something vague about how act 5 act 2 was its peak and how it's unironically good, while act 6 - especially its beginning - is of mixed quality at best. these answers are the sort of pre-determined, thought-terminating clichés i settled on to easily talk about homestuck now without wanting to actually dwell on it. i'll admit that, among my friends, i took on an attitude towards it that was more of a joking, "been there in the trenches" type thing (which is hardly true, i only read it in 2016, after its conclusion) than an embarassed attitude. but... once i saw this video recommended to me, i was _happy to see it._ an immediate "fuck yes, it is, we're so back" kind of deal. which is interesting, isn't it? i LOVE this story, but convinced myself i didn't to the extent that i do by overblowing gripes i (and, in many cases, actually other people) have with it. because, here's the thing with me: i'm still, quite embarassingly, very easy to be pulled along by other people's opinions. and seeing that the public opinion on homestuck had shifted to "homestuck was a mess lololol", i kind of went along with it. and it made sense - i DID have gripes with it, and there was a lot of """fandom drama""" that i saw, so, sure? why not join this public sense of shame in it? of course, now, this video has made me see that for what it is: plain insecurity. which is relevant for the second aspect of my reaction to this video: the content regarding the epilogues and HSBC. at first, i thought your analysis of the nature of the backlash to them was needlessly reductive. i thought that boiling it down to mostly just right-wing bigots was missing a lot (though, later, the addition of wokescolds into the equation helped fill that gap i felt was there). but then i realized something: i'm not actually fully aware of how it really was! my problems with the epilogues and HSBC were mostly "lol this sounds like bad fanfiction. jane becomes a fascist? jade and rose have a bastard kid and it's named yiffany? this is ridiculous", so all the criticism i saw, for me, mostly just blended with what i thought, and i assumed it was that way. so, for the longest time, what really drew me into homestuck were the more abstract, complex and mindbending concepts it employs: the time travel, timelines, alt realities, the game constructs, etc. what tvtropes puts as a "kudzu plot". meanwhile, the "drama" of it, which really started picking up in act 6, was what i hated the most in it. i didn't want to see jane and jake melodramatically moan about love - i wanted the cool shit! and, as i alluded to before, this was simple teenage insecurity steeped in patriarchal ideals of masculinity i didn't know i was following (i am AMAB, for context). i hated being faced with genuine human struggles and emotions and connections, because it arose uncomfortable feelings in me that only came out as anger at it. i grew much since then, of course, i'm now some vaguely transfem, nonbinary creature who's much more comfortable in being honest about my feelings. but, inadvertently, i still carried a lot of that perspective, at least regarding homestuck. up until now, i've avoided the epilogues and HSBC due to those same, lingering feelings of "ugh, i hate all this drama, where's the cool shit" (which was also propelled by the actual, real backlash against them which just turned me off) since these works focus so much more on these aspects of the characters. anyways, to make a long story short, this video's helped me to reflect on all that and realize that, despite having grown, i'm still pretty "dave-like" with it all, and it's incentivized me to give the post-canon content another good-faith try. they still feel extremely weird to me, and maybe i'll still feel that way afterwards, but... homestuck in itself is weird, so who cares? if you've read this, thanks for taking the time, i guess hahahah. but, mostly, thanks for the video. much like homestuck, it's Good, Actually. PS: i go by kira along with phoebe, and "my partner, Kira" jumpscared the hell out of me, thanks

[@kylemarshiku]

Honestly, you leave me stunned. This is not only the most heartfelt comment I've received, but it's also the most heartfelt comment I've ever seen, period. Some might say I'm biased because ultimately it's a kind, positive comment to my video, but no, it's not just that. It's the *sincerity* of it. The honest sincerity. And that was a big part of my video, sincerity. I criticized irony, and still I get some comments thinking or hoping my claim that Homestuck is good is tinted with some kind of irony, but no. This whole endeavor has been sincere, and your comment has mirrored that sincerity. It's very kind, and I am touched. I'm glad you're willing to give the post-canon content another go. I do of course think they're worth revisiting. Maybe you still won't like them, and that's okay. Regardless, I wish you luck in figuring out which feelings are "yours", so to speak. Personally if I had to describe Homestuck as a meal, I'd say the zany plot stuff and shenanigans was like a big, juicy appetizer, but it was the characters that made me stick around for the entree. Oh and about the right-wing stuff, if it helps clarify things, I think there's a distinction to be made between "right-winger" and "reactionary". There's overlap, and I'm guilty of overlapping the terms surely, but I think the distinction is important because people of any ideology can have reactionary tendencies. Right-wingers tend to just have it in spades lol. And sorry about the scare with Kira lol.

[@phoebetocchio7801]

@@kylemarshiku hahah oh my god, thanks for the reply! your words are very kind, im glad my scattered thoughts made you feel that way. though, for the sake of accuracy, i must admit that i might've accidentally painted myself as more irony-poisoned than i really have been. in fact (if you'll indulge more personal anecdotes), something i remembered after my original comment is that, last year, i actually made a whole trollsona for myself along with a friend who did the same, though it was all still kind of coated with a sort of "haha how embarassing and cringe" attitude; having explicitly said i "embarassed myself". i remember feeling sort of insecure about showing it to other people, with how self-indulgent and "cringe" it is, but... honestly, i'm happy about it, and got good responses. i suppose i was already on track for these realizations for a while. also, i fully agree about the reactionary thing, i get what you mean. maybe it could've been clearer in the video, but it all came across just fine by the end anyway. again, thank you for the reply! made my night.

[@sm3argleliker]

ur real as fuck for this comment i had an eerily similar reaction to this video and my opinion on homestuck had pretty much the same progression

[@sirbootty6535]

my mom claimed Homestuck gave me a personality disorder once

[@hawtshaymin]

wonderful video. i loved it as someone who got into homestuck on and off into my 20s, and i even showed this vid to a non homestuck friend who loved it as well

[@kylemarshiku]

That's great to hear! Thanks for watching AND sharing!

[@user-ih8jc8mk7z]

I'm so glad you addressed the Beyond Canon revival. Because I kept wanting to jump on the comments and mention it before I'd finished the video, but I also know that's exactly the sort of thing KZbinrs usually have to deal with where it's something that's been addressed already. And same, I feel like this comic that I only discovered AFTER it was all over and done with has had a profound and deep effect on who I am as a person. I am the Knight of Heart! And I'll do what I can to save everyone!

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you! And THANK YOU for having that willpower to resist the temptation. I can't tell you how many comments I've gotten notifying me of the thing the conclusion for the video is based around lol

[@colorsofdoom]

Beautiful video, made me realize some stuff about it I hadn't thought about before

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you!

[@TenebraeUbr]

I remember that I read a bit of Homestuck when I was in highschool, but I didn't really get deep into Homestuck until I was in college, during Act 5 I think? I made a lot of friends because of it, made OC trolls and talksprites and even had a pesterchum app for talking with friends a couple times. I was obsessed with fan comics and ask-blogs and anything that reminded me of MSPA for a few years!... until I drifted away when I depression-fueled failed my 3rd year. I got back into Homestuck a little bit before ==>Collide [S], maybe 6 years later, all alone, no friends to talk about it with anymore... yet it is still something that matters a lot to me. The music from the Vol.1-4, up to coloUrs and mayhem Universe A and B still are a part of my life's soundtrack. I hope to finish it all over again and see all the cool stuff fans have made over the years. Also: Wow Voosh jumpscare!

[@kylemarshiku]

Ah alright, thanks for watching! Homestuck's music is soooo underrated. It's genuinely an amazing library of awesome talent.

[@CreatorProductionsOriginal]

Holy moly. Not surprised that I like Homestuck now (it’s a inner joke between my me’s that I like to avoid things I like, previous example: Sprunki, now it’s Homestuck) But darn, this is “if I had ADHD I would hyper-fixate on this” kind of levels I just have to recognize Thank you for opening my mind lol

[@kylemarshiku]

Glad you liked it! : )

[@siobhan_dlm]

homestuck has been my nearly lifelong comfort series that i got into in 2010 when i was 10 and now as a(n almost) 25 year old it still brings me so much happiness and the warmth i've felt from the fandom is something most people brush past and i loved the way you highlighted that part. great video, homestuck videos always make me so nostalgic i love this series and community

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you! My experience within the fandom has been mixed to be honest, but thats why I talk about anti fans, because I believe they skew the data, so to speak.

[@dumpsterDeity]

I started reading Homestuck after playing Undertale, mainly because i got obsessed with Toby Fox's music and wanted to experience his other creative work. I dropped reading homestuck so many times 😂 had a real love-hate relationship with it. Only finished reading it 2020 during a lockdown, and if i started reading it in 2016 that will be like 4 years?? The narrative was confusing, I didn't understand the intermission stuff, the hopping between timelines stuff, the exile stuff and all of that frustrated me to no end. But after taking a short break I would find myself drawn back to it anyway. It took a lot of back and forth, rereading certain segments, consuming reader analysis on tumblr and KZbin for me to finally piece the story together to some degree. After all these years, I agree with you, my verdict is that Homestuck is actually good. Ive never experienced a fictional work like it before, and i don't think i ever will

[@kylemarshiku]

It's kinda alien to me imagining experiencing Undertale and then going back to Homestuck. Feels like the reverse order lol. But hey that's valid. Anyway, glad Homestuck means a lot to you, and glad you enjoyed the video!

[@asteraceae]

I watched this when it first came out with my partner but I came back to comment about how awesome this video is:3

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you!

[@LegendOfMoriad]

Interesting that I find myself a fallen fan. Not in complaint to the content, but to the density of presentation. I appreciate the Ultimate Recap because now I can just see the ending of the tale.

[@kylemarshiku]

Hey, sometimes life gets in the way, or your interests wane, and you just never get around to finishing something you had once liked. Thanks for watching!

[@mahpell7173]

I don't really care about IRL "canon", because canon itself is conceptualised by official Homestuck "aftercanons" as something that happens after the game ends, therefore not being part of "the game". That was started even earlier with Paradox Space, as we know there are innumerable sessions out there and everything is canon and non-canon at the same time, considering the amounts of ghosts of different fates. I consider the end of Homestuck and it's official continuation as an open ending with extra steps. You can accept the both Epilogues and ^2, or only part of it, or the Snapchat Epilogue, or completely turn your head towards fan comics like Omega or Act 8, or just dream of your perfect aftermath. This is part of the beauty of the Homestuck for me.

[@kylemarshiku]

I also think canon is overrated, though I don't see it exactly the same way you do. Regardless, thank you for watching!

[@mahpell7173]

@kylemarshiku And that's the beauty of this webcomic too. We all can interpret it in different ways. And thank you for making this video!

[@ccs8847]

will update my thoughts when i actualy finish the video, i was (and recently getting back) a homestuck fan after the comic had pretty much finished, i was catching up through the lets-read series and read to the end on my own when those ended and barely engaged with the fandom outside of art so i had no idea what a lot of the common beliefs in/around the series were. i lost my understandign of the plot around midway through act 6 but i genuienly liked the series as w hole, thought it was cool and kinda blown away at how many people seemed to hate the comic mainly just due to length complexitiy or schenanigans and im really glad people are commin back around and seeing that its still a fun piece of art even after its time in the spotlight. i havent read anything past the epilogues because i heard it was "very bad" and didnt question it beyond that, but ive been commin back around to it and probably gonna give them a shot after seeing the turnaround of recent writing its had oh, and also homestuck made me gay too

[@ccs8847]

near the end and wow this video accidently hit this comment square on the head huh? the whole "homestuck was good until X!" thing specifcially lol. definently not the direction i expected this to go the more meta-political side of the comic but damn this is incredibly well put together and a sorta reminder to the time/impact the comic had (speciifcally sutff like the usage of r slur and other similar stuff with real people. yeesh. i almost entirely forgot about that or didnt give it the time of day) also THANK YOU for actually talking about the game in connection to undertale i swear ive only seen like 2 other people mention that connection like, ever, its about as taboo as you described. nice video :33

[@ccs8847]

(oh and also i was genuinely uninformed about ANY of the harrasment after the epilouges, damn. now ill definelty the sequal a try. i only heard it was bad and didnt exactly care enough to see it for myself at all because to me the story was finished)

[@kylemarshiku]

To me, there's two kinds of complexity comments. There's "Woah man this is craaaaaaazy let's go!" and there's "This is nonsense garbage, what's even happening". They carry a different tone. And honestly, while Homestuck is undeniably complex, I feel it does a disservice to simply describe it as such, like it's nothing more than a big problem in Calculus class. There's pathos there. Based on the gay thing btw. And thank you for the comments! Made me happy. And yeah the fact no one talked about the harrassment was a big motivator for this video. I genuinely think people hating on HS2 have rose-tinted glasses for the flaws of the original.

[@sirtacovi3262]

My entire entry point into Homestuck was in 8th grade seeing my sister reading act 1 and thinking 'haha that looks goofy, what's it called?' and then I read the entire thing. ...The Gigapause happened a few pages after I caught up.

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw that timing mustve stinked

[@percivalderolo6195]

I feel so much shame for my interest in homestuck and have since i got into it when i was a kid. my family called it demonic, people on the internet kept me at arms length and my ex boyfriend told me to not speak about it at all in any capacity. the shame i feel is so deep rooted and affects me so deeply.

[@kylemarshiku]

I'm sorry to hear that, but as I say in the survey section, I'm not surprised. I hope this video helped ameliorate that for you to at least some degree

[@percivalderolo6195]

@ it is nice to see that people have also had this extremely specific experience with homestuck . I thought that it was a shame that was specific to the trauma I experienced and that I was alone, but it seems like a fandom wide phenomenon. Thank you for your video , it’s nice to see more videos swaying to the positive about homestuck .

[@goldengrecha]

I read homestuck after it already was finished. I wasn't here when epilogues *just* dropped, and I read them several years after. You can say when I was *here* with homestuck its only when HS^2 got resurrected and started to update again in October. But! But. Its still a very, very important piece of media for me, that scratches my brain in a way nothing else does, and it means something important for me that i even can't put it into words. And epilogues and HSBC was as important as Homestuck for me, and I was pretty much sad when I had a high interest in them, only to be meet with criticism and "dont read epilogues, its shiiit" So. first, thank you for this video, it made me happier and clearly made my day, and second, that's a small thing just from me, but gosh, thanks for talking about things in epilogues and further, I was so hungry for someone to actually TALK about it, tell something else that they're bullshit and crap. Thank you for this incredible work, ilu.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thanks! Honestly I hadnt seen anything actually analyzing the post canon content, so I was glad to take that on. Its good! Unironically! Your comment made *my* day! : )

[@Sinetheballwoman]

I only read Homestuck after it finished. As a kid like (11) i remember my sister telling me about these trolls and i got kinda fixated on fan content and recently as a 20 year old child i read it. And I really like it. It helped me alot with breaking my egg. As a trans woman. I don't know. Thanks.. for the video.

[@kylemarshiku]

Hey based! Congrats on the egg breaking! I remember once playing Let's Read Homestuck at the part where the narration over Gamzee was saying "motherf*cking" a lot, and my mother walked in, and I had to be like "It's not like this all the time, I promise!"

[@minestar2247]

2:10:54 huh, the harrassment campaign part reminded me of some other piece of media I love that had the same fate, Interesting how that happens

[@kylemarshiku]

Oh? Was it one that was known for having a strong queer presence?

[@minestar2247]

@@kylemarshiku no, but it was somewhat leftist, and it got harrased for being "woke" , "too feminist' and similar reasons

[@kylemarshiku]

Ah, I'm sorry. It's unfortunately common

[@JayteeStarr]

2:22:22 You put a lot of emphasis for a reveal we got in the video title. 😂

[@kylemarshiku]

Hey some people might mot have noticed the Was to Is switcheroo : P

[@enzoul777]

I read it when the fandom was already in decline, between the end and the Epilogues. I’ve re-read it since and always enjoyed the Epilogues. It’s a shame it has such a reputation online, as one of the greatest stories and worlds I’ve ever seen.

[@kylemarshiku]

Glad it meant so much to you, and nice to see a fellow Epilogues enjoer

[@Gitz303]

got home from school and was WAITING for this to drop lets fucking go

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you!

[@grizlo6716]

god i feel like such a nerd writing this but here goes, you got the negative half of the quandrants pretty wrong, no hate intended its confusing and weird by design but basically, your Kismesis is an exclusive relationship, which means if a troll were to start to have black feelings for another troll while engaged in an ongoing blackrom with someone else, it is the duty of an Auspistice to prevent this from happening, maintaining the pre-existing relationship and preventing cheating. there is also a secondary application for Auspisticism. if not to prevent black cheating then to determine if an ongoing or growing blackrom is bad for the troll's social or romantic life, just like what was happening between Gamzee and Terezi, their blackrom was destroying Terezi's life and taking her down a dark spiral, even if she wasnt cheating on anybody, its still the duty of an Auspistice to end the engagement for the sake of the troll's health and other relationships

[@kylemarshiku]

No, I believe you are mistaking quadrant vascillation for monoamory. The auspitice mediator is meant to stabilize a relationship that vascillates between positive and negative. It does not mean that you are only allowed to fill only one quadrant or one side of it. You simply dont want to have the same person in both the positive and negative, as that is unhealthy. Unless youre the Signless and Disciple I guess, who rejected the paradigm.

[@lavinmohxsa]

​@@kylemarshiku or Karkat and dave

[@kylemarshiku]

I think in most respects, Karkat and Dave were just a matespritship. However, the Candy relationship of Karkat, Dave, and Jade, yes, was a rebuke of the quadrant system in favor of just being a triad. Sadly it wasn't a healthy relationship though because they never communicated!

[@popcornastoria]

59:32 We haven't seen June's appearance YET. HSBC is still ongoing.

[@4rsenicCatnap]

homestuck made me an omni-present time lord

[@kylemarshiku]

but that's Lord English : O

[@Person76439]

VIZ does not own Homestuck anymore, and hasnt for a long time.

[@kylemarshiku]

The HICU is separate from VIZ

[@Person76439]

@kylemarshiku No, as in, the VIZ deal was straight up cancelled. VIZ no longer holds the rights to publish the IP. The HICU exists as a new alternative to license projects, no longer under corporate influence.

[@kylemarshiku]

Incorrect, HICU has a license to publish. These are not mutually exclusive with VIZ.

[@Person76439]

@@kylemarshiku There are multiple posts of people emailing VIZ about it, to which the responses confirm Homestuck is no longer one of their published properties.

[@Zmax15]

@@kylemarshiku Viz never owned Homestuck, and no posts confirm as much. Viz had publishing rights, not ownership. If had bought it, the HICU couldn't get a license from Hussie, because he wouldn't own it. They had a license which has either lapsed or they've canceled/ignored.

[@Daydrum]

I heard about home stuck about a year and half ago. I think I need to read it for my self now, thank you!

[@darthvaderisback21]

I made the original “don’t you dare forget the sun Karkat” video, and people like you who look back on the homestuck so fondly are the reason I don’t delete my channel ❤

[@kylemarshiku]

Aw thank you! I know what it's like to have "cringe" uploads in the past, and I understand the incentive to be rid of it, but I'm glad you've been able to hold strong and keep that art up! : )

[@gamesbyzeta1434]

Its neet seeing things from a different perspective on this series, because i literally never even noticed how gay it was, not in a "i ignored it" way, but in that that side of everything was just a small blip on my radar while reading, as i was just so engrossed in the systems and mechanics of the world they lived in lol. Im an autistic guy who is Aromantic, and just fell so hard down the godtier theorycrafting rabbit hole that i never found my way out lol. Gotta shout out bladekindyeyewear for being the goat who did so much for that side of things by bringing up claspect inversions and how they reflected in the story. Along with active/passive dichotomy.

[@kylemarshiku]

Ooh interesting. Part of me wanted to figure out how all the classes and aspects would work, but part of me goes naaah dozens of other people already did that work lol

[@medmed5436]

32:39 what homestuck ost is here in the bg? Im just so obsessed with it

[@kylemarshiku]

"The Beginning of Something Really Excellent" by Robert J! Lake in the Homestuck Vol. 5 album

[@medmed5436]

@kylemarshiku thank youu!!!

[@naatikata8018]

You are based. Homestuck is a masterpiece. I loved your analysis. Thanks a lot.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you very much!

[@Sol-jp7zm]

Is there like, an active homestuck discord community? Id love to rejoin

[@kylemarshiku]

The Homestuck subreddit does have its own discord, but I've not been one much for reddit, so I don't have that much experience with that community. I can say I've set up as discord for this channel, but it's very new and very small.

[@Beepbleep413]

I like the complaints about “proshippers” are a little out of place and feel like straw men. In a post “contrapoints: twilight” world it feels like a conversation that at needs more nuance than you’re giving it. Sometimes people don’t take fiction 100% literally. You need to actually make the argument that your way of looking at stories is the only path forward instead of assuming everyone who disagrees with you is morally compromised. This isn’t referring to people being racist about the kids

[@kylemarshiku]

I literally said the problematic ones were only a minority of them, not all of them, and I even showed examples of fine ships, before going into detail abput why another example was not okay. The nuance is there. Dont lie and say it isnt.

[@FirionLeFleur]

I just want my physical copies of the second half! 😭

[@rawtoastcrewyt7882]

The political spread of homestuck as it evolved is so interesting, I'm glad you went so in depth about it. I guess not necessarily like in depth in the political stuff, but like how different fans evolved. anyway, its interesting. Cool video. :)

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you! Well I did have a politics section, but it was more taken as a whole

[@AC-om1vu]

I think your takes around the use of the r word and the aracial stuff are a bit less valid considering that homestuck was made in 09 when progressive culture was a lot less prevalent in media and people just generally didn’t care as much. Obviously it wouldn’t be the same today but I would cut 2009 hussey some slack.

[@kylemarshiku]

I didnt really want to get into a "product of their time" debate because honestly, while that context is definitely relevant, I dont ultimately think it changes the ethics. The classic example is that slavery was once the norm but we should remain steadfast in admonishing slavers of all eras.

[@ericquiabazza2608]

Yes, that mostly self implied The issue happens when the "bad thing" becomes the whole center of the argument. I dont expect Julio Verne books to not be racist (they very much are, specially against indigenous "canibals"), yet i read them not because the racism. In síntesis: not dicard media in its entirety by the culture shift, or even idiology it bases on. Which is call "critical thinkin"

[@kylemarshiku]

Yeah I agree with that. We should be critical in these evaluations. Fun fact: people often talk about HP Lovecraft's racism, but few know that he actually wrote about regretting his racism later in life. Unfortunately, his racism was preserved within his literature.

[@casparschmidt865]

It's been many years since I've known about homestuck, but I've started the comic multiple times throughout the years and I've always had trouble to finish the prologue (which seems to go on and on and on forever lol). But your video resurrected my interest in it again, so I'll give it a honest attempt

[@kylemarshiku]

You wouldn't be alone in thinking that the first few Acts are dry. Personally I find them to still be amusing and funny, but they are definitely a different KIND of funny (like, there's a lot of programmer humor).

[@MysteryMedia2001]

I’m not really in the fandom anymore but I still love homestuck with my whole heart. Yes it has its problems but every piece of media does. I really hope June does become canon in this revived beyond canon because as a transfem who very much related to John growing up it would be great.

[@greenstarlover1]

12:40 - as a Jewish myself, I ngl - that's hilarious (if a very, *VERY* bold choice).

[@kylemarshiku]

Me, making little cards for every Homestuck character, realizing I am going to have to make one for Hitler: ...

[@Person76439]

I do want to point out a couple things. 1. Erisolsprite and Pre-Retcon Arquiusprite did not survive the retcon. There is no evidence they went on LOWAS when John zapped the planet away, hence why they never appear. They were simply erased from existence along with the timeline. Other missing sprites who didn't appear in the credits did end up appearing later on the MSPA Snapchats, barring Arquius who at this point is likely biding his time to pop up during Caliborn's Masterpiece (likely within the Lil Seb bunny, but that's a whole rabbithole). 2. In the epilogues, there is no evidence Gamzee and Vriska did anything beyond make out. Not that it makes it much better, but I did want to point that out lol 3. The ending is not an escape from the narrative, given John's retcon is the very thing necessarily to ensure the Lord English time loop is fulfilled.

[@kylemarshiku]

Sorry you're not correct. 1. Erisolsprite literally reappears in the HSBC content. Check the recap. It's also stated explicitly that the pre-retcon sprites survived by hitching a ride on LOWAS. The fact the comic doesn't show the 2nd ARquiusprite doesn't change that. 2. I provided screenshots to back up my point about Vriska and Gamzee's intimacy. I feel I was able to back up my interpretation. 3. This is just a failure of media analysis. John going back into the narrative and dying doesn't negate the fact that Act 7 showed the cast leaving the narrative.

[@Person76439]

@@kylemarshiku 1. Fefetasprite also reappears in HSBC, and she exploded and reappeared as normal dream ghosts later in Homestuck proper. I don't think all of these sprites are literal, especially since Erisolsprite also never appeared in later material until now. When is it stated that ALL the Pre-Retcon sprites went on LOWAS? We never knew Davesprite was alive until he popped up out of nowhere and became Davepeta. There is nothing implying Pre-Retcon Arquius escaped. 2. The screenshot is detailed prose of kissing. Vrissy later specifies that "sometimes you just have to make out with a dumb clown", and nothing describes nudity or any other action except making out in the bushes. 3. If John must still complete the timeloop, the characters haven't actually escaped the narrative. I was under the assumption that escaping the narrative entails leaving it all behind; not allowing the timeloop to be completed and not giving Caliborn what he wants. One can assume that, rather, John's decision to choose Candy instead of Meat is when the narrative is actually escaped. Even then, the epilogues actually strangely imply that Candy Earth is actually the version of Earth where Caliborn predominates, since the narration mentions that the meteor in Candy will eventually harbor a cherub child "chained to their bedroom," which is only a thing because of Gamzee, who chained them there, and subsequently leads to Caliborn predominating. And given HSBC now getting Candy back into relevance, it seems that both Meat and Candy are intertwined and will ultimately fulfill the Alpha timeloop. That...really isn't an escape. I imagine Hussie MAY have intended it at some point, but the very fact that the retcon is an instrument to complete the timeloop rather than John forcing the narrative to change for their freedom kind of negates this.

[@DoctorTopper]

All around great video. Really thoughtful, thorough yet concise. Well edited. I think the weakest parts were about politics and the more overt sex/gender stuff from post canon. BECAUSE most of the story just isn't direct about it. But being indirect was a strength not a weakness. The fact is some issues are so complex its silly to assume an author has all the answers. But in a completely fictional story you can explore hypothetical fictional examples that don't need to have direct 1-1 comparison to have an impact and explore possible answers.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you, I appreciate it. I know the sex/gender comment is meant to be a criticism, but honestly I kinda agree. It's why I don't think Jade or Roxy's portrayals as queer are offensive. Roxy hardly makes his transition a big deal, and I think the intersex connection makes sense, but even that isn't a 1:1 to match, and that's okay.

[@DoctorTopper]

@kylemarshiku most of all thank you for making such a well done video essay

[@2powerstar]

I look back fondly on homestuck, but i was never really in the fandom, i had one friend i talked to about it and that was it. Trying to go back to it i struggle to get past act 5, specifically the trolls. Though thats more due to why i went back. I wanted the rules of the session. And the start of act 5 is just recovering the rules so thats really a non issue. So yeah. Homestuck was what it was. This is a good look back, good wirk

[@kylemarshiku]

Thanks! I feel you. The fandom can feel insular at times. I feel ever since the MSPA forums died, they kinda scattered. There's still a lot on Tumblr, but Tumblr is also a shadow of what it was.

[@Louisville0321]

As a trans man, I was so ecstatic when Roxy was revealed as a trans man. Roxy was one of my favorite characters and seeing him made me feel a little more comfortable with myself.

[@kylemarshiku]

Im glad to hear that! Some people try to invoke the opposite argument, saying that allowing Roxy to transition invalidated people that interpreted her as transfem, but I dont think that a good argument, as Roxys gender differs between timelines, which is interesting in and of itself.

[@gatordragon6140]

Oh hey new homestuck essay, time to watch this thing about a series i totally know nothing about i sweeeeeeeear ::::)

[@kylemarshiku]

Mhhm suuuuure (squints at avatar) : P

[@Fiskiuggar]

Homestuck made me question things about myself I’ve never questioned before

[@tub3t04d]

You can really tell how long this video took to make bc homestuck^2 has been back for... a while and it was treated as dead for the majority of the video

[@kylemarshiku]

Yuuuuup. This took 1.5 years to make. Still HS2 was dead for 3 years, and I think its important to recognize the mourning of that time.

[@Unidentifiedcanid]

Dude homestuck is gonna stick with me forevermore. And seeing someone address it in such a good manner that isn't just cringe culture bs is so refreshing. Subscribed, eagerly awaiting the recap vid.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you! Yeah the false irony gets so old. Btw the recap is actually out now!

[@Unidentifiedcanid]

@@kylemarshiku yeah I noticed! Watching it right now.

[@maslnaa]

homestuck was such a huge part of my life in middle thru highschool. i still only have a vague understanding of what it’s even about. All i cared about was the music and fan content :P

[@kylemarshiku]

Well hey I made this plus a recap to catch you up if you're interested

[@RetroRageasaurus]

🥺 oh my goodness... I know sometimes I look back on this entire section of my life like, "how on EARTH did I manage to read, AND WAIT, for all of this, for such a long period of time", but imma tell u now, I rarely regret the time I spent with it ✌🏿 Lol I just got to 3:21 , bracing now, bring it on fam! XD

[@kylemarshiku]

Thanks for watching!

[@EzidzeEnriko]

о да я определенно хочу потратить 2 часа жизни на то, чтобы понять, какой хоумстак хороший

[@HakureiRyuu]

Homestuck was my asexual awakening. moirallegience was my gateway drug into relationships that were nonsexual but also explicitly a form of committed romance. not trivialized, not "late bloomer", not a phase or a trauma response, and DEFINITELY not "just close friends"; but something real and raw and valuable. I started tentatively identifying as demi, gagueing people's reactions, and eventually fully ace. my mom still doesn't understand. homestucks influence on me as a person cannot be overstated, but neither can its impact on the world, on the way fandoms WORK, on so much of the media that came both during and after. but after the epilogues, all the tongue in cheek references to this colossal media juggernaut suddenly vanished. I don't like what the epilogues did with Jane and Dirk, and haven't been able to make myself read HS2 because of that. I think the original homestucks determination to push the boundaries of what is possible in a story is admirable, and I also think it reached and then crossed those boundaries. I think that hussie got so tired and burned out that they began to hate their own story for what its popularity had done to their life, and it shows. and I also think hussie tried their absolute hardest, even to their own detriment, to make the ending WORK. but god help me, for all the things I thought were overplayed or under utilized, I would have accepted ALL OF IT... if only they had merged the house juju with the genesis tadpole. make their new universe LITERALLY outside the laws of paradox space instead of just a stopgap measure. anyway, thank you for writing all this, and recording and editing it and shit. thank you for the effort to make space for all my positive memories in a way that my friends no longer do.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you for watching! And yeah that sounds rad! Glad you were able to have a similar asexual experience to my own! As for Hussie, I don't think Hussie began to hate Homestuck, or at least not that simply. I think Hussie resented how easy it was raise the ire of the fandom. Compare it to Toby Fox, who basically went into internet witness protection to evade his fandom. Even when fandoms are behaving generally decently, a minority of bad actors can really wreck havoc. And I know it won't be so simple for me to sway you on Jane and Dirk, but here's what I think. I think the reason those 2 characters changing bothers you is because they turned previous heroes into villains. I don't mind this at all. I think it makes for an interesting story, and I think they build on what came before. Dirk had a lot of personal demons that he never really solved, and those have come back to bite him. Even now he doesn't consider himself a "real" villain. He's a wrestling heel, a performer. He is playing the villain because he believes Homestuck needs one to continue. Jane, on the other hand, simply had a bad political framework. She spent so much time wanting to be an heiress, an executive, owning a corporation, and she was groomed by the Condesce. Is it really that surprising that she would become a corporate dictator? I say, not at all.

[@HakureiRyuu]

@kylemarshiku with Jane I have less of a leg to stand on, bc her character arc was never really finished in Homestuck, so I can't really say anything about what ways it would have naturally and satisfyingly gone. but Dirk ended Homestuck with a harsh reality check on how horrible of a person he could theoretically be, and decided to work harder to be better and avoid a similar fate. and then in the epilogues and sequel he just... dives headfirst back into it? and yeah, the ultimate self stuff, I get that backsliding can be an effect of that shit. I just, personally, really hate it.

[@kylemarshiku]

You raise a good point with Dirk trying to work on himself. The way I see it, Dirk was legit trying, and that was commendable. But with the Ultimate Self stuff, the one "you" is just one "you" in a sea of "yous". Dirk talks about how his splinters were as bad as he was in Homestuck. He and Dave talk about Bro. Arguably Lord English is even a splinter of Dirk. I see Ultimate Dirk as a tragic figure from the perspective of Alpha Dirk. That one Dirk tried to be better, but he started to ascend to his Ultimate Self and became consumed by all the other bad Dirks out there. The Epilogues with this in mind kinda paint a picture that Dirk suffered alone as he ascended and sought no help, corrupting in darkness off screen, as opposed to Rose who sought help for her suffering. That's my take anyway.

[@pymxolbodoesstuff6743]

honestly i fw june egbert but i would prefer if its done in beyond canon to not be the weirdly common trope of seemingly just being possessed by a different person that i have seen in june media multiple times but maybe thats just how the discovery of being trans feels and im just dont know that since im not trans. writing this out has made me consider this a lot harder so if somebody sees this and knows please tell me because i have found it so frustrating especially on the egbert parable because it was so good before it seemed like it could have been like a natural realization until boom here comes light blue text thats gonna like take over johns body or smth but again im not trans so maybe thats just how it feels? honestly came off more like if john went through the heinousstuck ritual than anything else but i did drop it once the trope started so maybe im dumb and this whole comment was pointless because i didnt realize that it was actually done well and that i dropped it too early. kind of lost focus there but tldr; should have used the ska sunsetter 8/10

[@kylemarshiku]

I don't know if I can adequately respond to this, but you seem to be a decent person who is just processing a lot. I would've like June to be a thing; I still hope she gets to be. I say don't wait on June to figure out how you feel. Good luck out there

[@pymxolbodoesstuff6743]

@kylemarshiku ??? all i am saying here is that i find the way most fanon does june to be weird and oddly like some sort of other being taking over the body instead of what i would assume to be just a sort of self realization that a trans person would have but since im not trans im not sure and am asking to know so that i can know if thats just like a popular way to show the change or something like that that im just not understanding.

[@kylemarshiku]

Sorry, it's a bit hard to follow you since you write in just one run-on sentence. It reads like you're very confused

[@pymxolbodoesstuff6743]

@kylemarshiku sorry i just sort of write ideas out and then dont go back and order them out lol

[@pymxolbodoesstuff6743]

@@kylemarshiku i have now realized that i was thinking about omlette route and not egbert parable so sorry for that bit of slander. and for final clarification i simply believe that i am concerned with how beyond canon might feature june egbert because the only fan adventure i have seen with june that does not have either a horribly out of character john or just some sort of weird possession-like thing is crow! strider, but i also believe that maybe the possession thing might just be some sort of metaphor for self realization and that i just dont get it since im not trans. sorry if this is still confusing but i have been thinking about this for days now and wanted to clear up any miscommunications.

[@lividlife213]

I love your discussion of the queer characters within homestuck and especially the sequel. I'm currently finding some stuff out about myself and hearing discussion about those topics through characters i enjoy helps me organize the way i think about these things. However i can't take any discussion of Roxy seriously after seeing that art of him doing his laundry while Dave and Karkat make out. Like he's just trying to live his life and those 2 are just unable to not make their relationship his problem. XD

[@Cypmongolien]

Someone had to say it

[@zototheo2580]

YESSS can't wait!!!

[@popcornastoria]

54:43 Where does Dirk actively clamp down on trans characters? It always seemed to me like he didn't understand it and was casually trans-queasy, but didn't ever actively oppose it or use his power as narrator to override their identities. In fact, Candy, the universe in which Dirk was "Demonetized" and has no influence, is where Roxy decides NOT to transistion and is comfortable with using she/her. I think a lot of his discomfort with Roxy's transistion stems from how many years Dirk insisted Roxy couldn't ever be a possible romantic partner to him, due to him being gay, only for Roxy to now come out as being a guy. That, and Dirk has a lot of complicated, unprocessed shit about his own gender identity, toxic masculinity, misogyny, etc. He has absolutely no problem referring to MSPAR with they/them, or Davepetasprite^2. It's when previously established characters change pronouns that he balks somewhat but, even then, he doesn't seem more than just mildly trans-queasy and unable to understand. Partly due to not being able to pull his head of his ass, and partly due to his own misgivings about what these circumstances mean for him and his pre-established understanding of these things and these people. I maintain that Dirk is Horsegender (introduced in Psycholonials), personally, LOL. He's the most transmasculine cis guy ever seen by Paradox Space. I'd just be REALLY curious to know where Dirk actively opposed or tried to change anyone's gender identity? No hate, just genuinely wondering. Love the vid so far.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you but I state in the video that this is an implication from putting together other facts. You could call it my theory. It's mostly borne out of how there's so few overtly trans characters, Dirk is able to easily manipulate most people, and the overtly trans ones are the ones he has difficulty controlling. His response to Roxy being nonbinary is particularly telling to me about how he feels that.

[@ct691]

Hi! I really like your video. So far, I’m an hour in and I really enjoy the effort you’ve put into everything from the editing, sound, and flow of the script. It’s nice to see someone actually take the time to discuss homestuck’s story, rather than just manufacture outrage for clicks. If i had to levy one piece of constructive criticism, I would say that it’s a bit confusing in my opinion to have the epilogues and hs2 versions of the characters be treated as direct continuations of the ones from the main comic. Maybe this sounds silly since yes, in the official post canon properties they are intended to fulfill that purpose. This is just my opinion, but I don’t find it totally fair to treat hs2 as part of the original homestuck webcomic, since the circumstances of its creation were very different in terms of time, the team behind it, and overall vision. I see Homestuck as a separate work from hs2 + the epilogues, since the former was not created in the same context or with the same goals in mind. Since the post-canon content explicitly intends to build upon an existing foundation and add new ideas. However, this is all just my personal opinion as a longtime fan of the comic. I’m biased, since I definitely felt outraged at the content of the epilogues when they released, as at the time I felt it was 1. Too soon after Homestuck’s conclusion to start again. And 2. That the content inside the epilogues was radically different from the original work, and seemed intended to upset fans and create outrage as a result of Andrew Hussie’s own frustrations with Homestuck. However, all of this is just my opinion, and everyone is free to disagree. Homestuck is complicated and inspired complicated feelings in its fans, so everyone tends to feel differently about what it does or doesn’t mean. Regardless, thank you for taking the time to approach Homestuck sincerely from your own perspective, to give it some legitimacy in the online space that it honestly deserves as a work of art. I hope Homestuck is one day remembered as a creative media project with true merit, and not just a comic that made chronically online teenagers in the 2010’s act a bit silly at conventions.

[@kylemarshiku]

Thank you, but I felt it was the right choice to treat the Epilogues and sequel as extensions of Homestuck. This video was meant to be a sort of post mortem, and I wanted to analyze this piece of media I loved so much as a whole, and I've never, not once, seen anyone else actually cover it that way. It's always drawing lines and separating things, and I think that's wrong. The Epilogues. Epilogues to what? The sequel. Sequel to what? They may do the dubious canon run-around, but HS2 literally said "official continuation" in the title! In any other context, media, or fandom, this wouldn't be a question. What, should I bow to peer pressure and treat them as separate because they were controversial? Well bleep that! I think they're great! There's a narrative that Hussie began to hate Homestuck, and I don't know where this comes from, because it's like... obviously not true? Maybe it's because I've been in that position, being a creative, and I've had a viral video or two in my day, but no, Hussie didn't resent the comic. Hussie would come to resent the volatile minority of the fandom that was impossible to please. Any change was met with hatred, and so Hussie dipped. That's why I felt I needed to cover the harrassment around Homestuck in this video. Anyway, I feel strongly about all that, but I do appreciate the comment and you watching, thank you very much.

[@FreedomTaleTrio]

2:21:59 Or maybe there's no such thing as an "end" to homestuck.

[@vordreller6428]

Ok, looking at the part about the sprites, I have to ask: have you not read Beyond Canon/Homestuck ^ 2? It's been going for over a year again. DavePetaSprite^2 has shown up again. Whereas the video states he's gone. EDIT: Ok reached the end, saw it mentioned.

[@kylemarshiku]

I wish people would wait until the end before making comments like this. This video took 1.5 years to make