#thoughts about homestuck

[skeksismars]

Guys I've been re-reading homestuck for a couple of days now, I'm on ACT 5 and I have some thoughts, not on the comic per se, but on the overall experience of reading Homestuck again after years. First of all it's kind of underwhelming. I remember clearly everything that happens, so the novelty factor is out, and the pacing is much more quick now that my english level is way higher. When I started reading homestuck I was just delving into english and Homestuck was basically an english boot camp for me, I was reading it at an incredibly slow pace, with Google Translate at my side and even still a lot of expressions flew over my head, like "irons in the fire" et cetera. It took me months to get to ACT 5, months that felt like years; heck, it took me one month to finish ACT 1, but on this re-read I had finished ACT 2 on my first day! There is also the factor of the music and art; on my first read I was fourteen and I was just exploring my artistic capability and developing a musical taste, and the art and music of Homestuck touched me deeply. I remember trying to copy the blocky silhuettes of the characters and Calliope's drawing style and some OSTs of Homestuck moved me to tears to say the least: sburb's theme, LOWAS's theme made me cry when John "ascended" and CASCADE was a motherfucking ephiphany.

The second thing (this relates more to ACT 5 than the rest of the comic) is the shipping. As I was fourteen on my first read all the changing relationships between the trolls were incredibly entertaining and captivating, I was on the edge of my seat trying to understand if a character liked another and if they would start a relationship together. Now I'm 22 and I see it as it really is: just some teenagers exploring their feelings for one another, something that is wasted energy to be taken seriously and should be experienced with a bit of lighthearted fun. As such I can't be taken in the drama of it all and so another layer of the experience is taken away.

I have been able to experience some entertaining however, some things new and some brought back to memory that I am able to enjoy still. One of these latter things is the characters. I still love them dearly and I love seeing my favourites interact and go through their character developments: John's arc (I love his little outfits so much), John's dad is and will always be the GOAT, Equius&Nepeta's interactions, Karkat's whole thing. As I am still on ACT 5 I don't know how I'll feel on future arcs and characters (ex. the 3 years gap on the ship and all the drama there and the alpha kids & trolls). As for new things I love being finally able to understand the wholeness of Homestuck without the aid of a translation device, I can FINALLY read it wholly and understand its subtleties and tones. For example, I never understood the davekat and johndave ships, EVER. It was because the subtext completely went over my head! Now I can SEE that Dave had a massive crush on John goddamnit!!!! And Jade had a crush on Dave!!! And I can understand Vriska and Tavros' relationship better! The first time it just felt like a giant mess.

I also love being able to understand the characters' psychologies, because before, due to the language barrier, it was really difficult for me to understand why the characters acted like they did. Vriska's whole mess, Karkat and Sollux 's self hatred, Eridan's need to be loved and DAVE'S GAYNESS I swear I hated being out of the loop like that. I JUST DID NOT GET IT. As of ACT 5 it's still kind of clowdy, he has made a lot of dick and gay allusions in his rap and some trolls have called him out on that, Rose too, and he clearly has a massive crush on John, but he's so deep in the closet the signs are still very mild for my brain to grasp. If I didn't know preemptively that Dave was gay as of now I would not get it.

This is all I can think about for now, maybe later I'll update this post with other thoughts :)

Anyway this as been my experience re-reading Homestuck as a 22 yo adult. Peace out

[eggsploded]

heiress eternal

[cringefail-clown]

turnabout kids and their sprites! ive had an ask laying around in my inbox about them for far too long lmfao, so ive finally decided to draw em out

jane: mime porcelain doll + poppop

dirk: seagull + hal

roxy: wizard figurine + frigglish

jake: gcat + his dreamself

[offkilterkeys]

Planned on making Jake punch someone and then put it off indefinitely by continuously making the canvas larger and giving them more friends.

[monteruu]

let's see how far we've come :)

[image id: digital illustration of john egbert, jade harley, rose lalonde, and dave strider from homestuck. they are all laying on a blue checkered picnic blanket laying on top of one another in a familiar manner and smiling.

john is at the center laughing heartily while jade is to the right laying down on her side. dave is to the left and is in a comfortable lounging position with one leg over one of john's and is resting his head in rose's lap who is smirking at john and jade's antics.

they are all in their respective godtier outfits. around them are some lush grassy hills with variously colored wildflowers spotting the landscape and the sburb sun setting behind them. end image id.]

[diezmil10000]

vrisrezi

[cupid-tune]

Obligatory Davekat cuddles

[soriastrider]

this has almost certainly been done before, but i think it's funny so i did it anyway

original:

[weaselishmcdiesel]

back when i wore dresses there were only two id ever wear, one because it was like a sweater and the other bc it had watermelons and i thought that was rad. he'd probably share the mindset i think

[fleshadept]

part of the reason the locked tomb characters are so memorable and complex is because they are very, very weird in the way only writers who understand that every human being is a little freak in their own way. harrow is the standout example of this—she is unnerringly pious to the rites of her religion in a way that to others comes across as zealotry but once we get into her point of view is revealed to be both, yes, because she is a zealot and also because the rituals and safety of painting her face, praying, etc calm her down. she eats penitently because she actually hates strong tastes. she is both schizophrenic and quite literally haunted, facts that recontextualize her behavior in gtn in an important way.

gideon is a butch and this universe’s version of a jock, and the first thing we see her do is try to escape harrow and the ninth and join the army (something that’s forgotten a little too often when people talk about her being “out of character” in ntn) because she wants to have a purpose, but we also come to learn that despite being raised in the literal dreariest place in the solar system she’s funny, sometimes even on purpose. she doesn’t know what a salad is. she reads sleazy porn magazines. she’s a talented swordswoman but is head over heels for every pretty woman she meets, to her own detriment at times.

every character is like this! they feel so real and complex because they have contradictions and weaknesses and opinions and incorrect beliefs and correct ones that are hard to tell the difference between.

[splickedylit]

thought 1: what's the expression I'm thinking of for this piece of dialogue. Probably "patronizing". thought 2: wait trolls shouldn't have the word "patronizing", it's from the root word for "father" and lusii very much don't fill the same role in their society as human fathers, why would the word develop that way thought 3: you had to name a historical time period a few chapters ago and called it "the Troll Edwardian Era" stop taking this so seriously thought 4: .......the societal concept of authority and condescension for trolls would take the form of the empress anyway, trolls should say "matronizing". Because it would be funny. thought 5: you have stopped typing in mid-sentence and have been sitting in motionless silence going on this mind journey for the last five minutes consider perhaps writing something already for fuck's sake

[bloobydabloob]

Lil Hal design ideas that kept glitching and posting weird. Let’s give this one last shot.

Dirk and Hal ramblings under cut if you want to give them a read.

Screenshots this time because I am not formatting this text for the fifth time. Good lord.

+ An extra doodle for your troubles. Thanks if you read any of that

[borzoilover69]

congratulations. you did it.

[cringefail-clown]

GAME OVER but its turnabout au

[offkilterkeys]

Crazy to think that from his perspective he went from thinking it would be funny if he cloned his own consciousness to then spending years tormented by the indignity of a cage wrought up by his own hubris.

[slavhew]

dropping a nuke on him