I am 0kay with many things. [stunt

So. Here's the thing.

I have been dipping my toes into Homestuck. Mostly because I somehow found myself clicking on a link to Rex Duodecim Angelis and discovering that the music for Homestuck is actually pretty great, if you like video-gamish stuff (given the nature of Homestuck all of those links are probably spoilery in one way or another, or possibly not due to sheer fandom osmosis). And then I discovered that there were a few nifty fanvids, and thanks to spending way too much time on Fandom Secrets listening to the deluge of Homestuck fandom wank I already recognized a few of the characters, and then I wanted to recognize them all, so I went on the TV Tropes page, and...well, and from there I wasted about three hours reading All The Tropes and watching out-of-context [S] vids from Acts 4 and 5. Because, even if I don't know precisely what's going on, the animation and artwork are still really quite impressive.

But. Um. I've been peeking at the plot in the TV Tropes sections, and it sounds so aggressively confusing that I'm not sure if I'm up for actually reading the comic. I mean. Even before we get to the enormous cast in Act 5, there's still what looks to be two simultaneously-ocurring timelines, plus alternate selves who may or may not be dead, and also people who travel back in time and become their own grandparents. Or something. And then there are interactions backwards in time - look, it's not that I'm a particularly stupid person, give me themes and meta and stuff and I can handle that, it's just that I'm not particularly good at keeping track of simultaneous alternating backwards timelines that contradict and occasionally reset each other. IDK.

So, folks who read Homestuck, is there a particularly good place to start? Should I read Problem Sleuth first? Is there a flowchart I can use? Is it not really as complicated as the trope pages make it look? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY TROPE PAGES

Also why do I have such a girlcrush on Mindfang for no particular reason, is this common.

The real reason I'm so reluctant to get into it is because I am finally learning to manage my horrifically short attention span and the last thing I need is a weeks-long archive binge that will cause me to forget school, assignments, job applications, the touch of sunlight, and human contact.

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I really liked Problem Sleuth. Eventually it started to get pretty heavy and convoluted so I had to stop, but until that point it was great. From what I understand, Homestuck is like the latter half of Problem Sleuth that made me feel dumb x100 :| so, I personally will be avoiding it until the end of time.

that said you definitely should read Problem Sleuth, I have no idea how it ends, but the beginning is top notch :D

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Given that Problem Sleuth eventually crosses over with Homestuck (or at least some Problem Sleuth characters kind of wander in, idk) it wouldn't surprise me that it gets complicated too.

I'll probably end up reading Problem Sleuth if only because it has a definite beginning and end, whereas I don't think HS has any projected end date? Although HS does appear to have some sort of "save" function to hold your place so you don't have to find the same place all over again.

Or I could focus on my homework like a responsible person. >__>

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Problem Sleuth has the save function too, thankfully! :DDD It does get really long - I had no idea it intersected with HS at any point :O how neat! (maybe that's why I started going WHAT IS HAPPENING AHHHHH)

...homework isn't a bad idea either though. /bad influence

I'm still not even sure if the Midnight Crew et al in Homestuck is even in Problem Sleuth - they're the same style, and I think they have some of the same motifs, but from what I can tell on the wiki they're either minor characters or one-shot characters who became unexpectedly popular and thus jumped universes. It's as complicated as everything else in this damn verse.

I'm actually doing labs right now! I'm just taking occasional breaks to read out-of-context Flashes and look at fanart. I'm so terribly efficient I don't even know what to do with myself.

Honestly I don't think it's too bad, plot-wise. Everything is very gradually introduced - in fact, it's so painfully slow to start that the advice given to most new readers is "just stick with it, it picks up once John stops fucking around with his Sylladex." Which is like, over 100 pages in. I may not be the best person to give advice on this, though, I'm not really a hardcore fan and in fact I go into ragefits at Andrew sometimes, so I don't have any particular investment in actually following the intricacies of the plot. But... recently there were three entirely separate stories happening in different parts of the page and it was easy as cake to follow, because it grew up so naturally from what was happening, so I wouldn't worry about not being able to keep track of things.

I guess give it a shot and see if you like it? But probably wait until more important things are dealt with. It is really, really, really easy to just keep hitting the NEXT button and lose days of your life to it. (The previous stories aren't necessary for following Homestuck, but Problem Sleuth was fun and I enjoyed reading it on its own.)

They actually do explain what Strife and the Sylladex and the Specibus are, at least they have so far, and that does make things significantly easier than just reading off the wiki or TV Tropes where they assume you already know what it is or use a trope I haven't read to describe it.

And oh wow, fuck, I just lost two hours and am on Act 2. This thing really does fly by. Mental note to keep the site blocked until there's a homework-free weekend.

I've just started getting into it too; I'm somewhere in the middle of Act 3. Just start from the beginning of Act 1 and go from there; it starts off really slow, but that's really the only bad thing about it. And I suggest taking your time reading it; the archive is HUGE, and it can be a lot to take in at one time.

I'm curious about this fandom too (not participating in it, per se, but finding good fanfic and fanart and meta and stuff like that), so I'd be interested to hear what you think. ^_^;

After about two hours I'm right at the beginning of Act 2; I had just started Dave's section and after that I realized it was getting late and I still had labs to do.

Weirdly, I thought the first chapter kind of flew by. It helped to have some time to figure out the game mechanic and what all the terms actually meant/what everything did, and the five-year-old in me remained amused by John screwing around with his inventory and flinging cake everywhere. Not to mention the meta humor of how infuriatingly inconvenient an inventory system would be in real life.

I don't know how much I want to get into the fandom yet. There's some very nice art, but the bit of it that hangs out on Fandom Secrets seems to be a bit shipwarry and hostile. Granted, the part of every fandom that's on F!S tends to be shipwarry and hostile, but, still. I'll see how I feel when I'm more caught up.

You don't need to watch Problem Sleuth, it IS as confusing as it sounds because Hussie doesn't give a fuck about reader accessibility ("aggressively confusing" is a great way to describe it), and "weeks long" is NOT an exaggeration.

I started reading it because of one of my flisters is heavy into it, and I'm still limping a few pages along every few days or so, but I doubt I'll finish it. The comic isn't... structured as much as I'd prefer (which I think is more to do with its genesis in webcomics and video games than any actual fault.) Also I cannot stomach all the incompetent romance, but that's a personal preference, as well.

Oh, just to mention that there are parts that I enjoyed very much-- I actually liked the beginning the most, actually--I just don't have the attention span for that kind of thing. Seriously, I rarely even finish novels. So my experience is likely not what your experience will be like.

But.

IT IS INSANELY LONG. And it's really easy to just keep clicking the next page; there are not many stopping places within each (insanely long) act. So DO NOT START THIS until you have a very long break.

Hussie doesn't give a fuck about reader accessibility

Yeah, I kind of suspected that once I paged through the TV Tropes pages and realized that there were not only whole characters but whole critical plot developments that were introduced specifically to piss off the fans. I remain undecided as to whether that's a virtue of an interactive online medium or not.

Which is another reason I was hesitant about getting into it, really. I like to know going in what the tone of a work is going to be like, so even if I get attached to a character I can do so with the full knowledge that they're probably going to become a mass murderer and die horribly. And that seems to be what happens whenever anyone likes a character too much.

I'd heard a lot about the beginning being really slow, but I really enjoyed it, and I got through Act I in just a couple of hours (which means I'm turning a lab in late today, unfortunately, but that's why I've blocked the site until I have more time. Foolproof!). I was entertained just by the concept of how inconvenient and hard-to-use video game mechanics would be in any kind of real world, and also John propelling cakes around the room made me giggle a bit. Also it was nice to have the terminology used and explained so I can get used to it before the plot kicks in.

That said, the rest of it will definitely have to wait for a weekend. There really are no good mid-act stopping points.

Start at the beginning and keep going. I think you get more in-jokes if you read Problem Sleuth, but you don't need to read it to read Homestuck!

I ended up reading that strange one-shot comic about the pumpkins and the people in the prison instead because I didn't know what it was when it came up in John's bookshelf. Not sure if that'll help me any.

That said, I've already blown right through Act I and have just started on Dave's first section, and the beginning didn't go by nearly as slowly as I was led to believe it was.

Problem Sleuth is almost entirely unrelated to Homestuck, so there's no need to read that.

Homestuck itself is exactly as confusing as it sounds. I frequently have no idea what's going on, but I continue to read because I like the characters and the interaction and the music and all the awesome things that happen. I'd recommend it, but only if you don't mind being a bit lost plot-wise.

I'm through Act I, and...so far everything seems comprehensible? But then again, I haven't even met half of the pre-Act 5 characters and there's only one time-travel element involved, so hopefully the complexity will ramp up at a manageable rate.

I'm really enjoying it thus far, so, and looking forward to reading more when I've got more spare time. (Which looks to be "never during this semester", but whatever.)

P.S. there's a wiki for ms Paint Adventures which has been very helpful. ^^

stunt_muppet

I am 0kay with many things.

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July