"All those Day-Glo freaks who used to paint the face,
They've joined the human race,
Some things will never change,"
Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan, 1976
Part One: Let Me Tell You About the Thing This Article Is About.
If there's one thing few people agree on when it comes to Homestuck
is whether it was actually any good or not. This is because there
isn't really another piece of art out there that we can compare it
to. Nobody else has done a project quite like Homestuck, save the
various fan projects that are derivative of it. As such, one can
never definitively state that Homestuck 'succeeded' or 'failed' at
what it was trying to do because we have no other examples of what
success or failure would actually look like in this nascent genre.
Since you're already here, it is highly likely you have at least
some familiarity with the format of Homestuck, but just in case you
are a novice anyway, here is a brief description for the uninitiated.
Created by writer and artist Andrew Hussie the plot concerns a group
of teenage characters booting up a reality-altering video game which
puts them on a quest to avert the destruction of reality. Homestuck
is typically referred to as a Webcomic, but that isn't really an
accurate descriptor.
(With that in mind, I will at times refer to Homestuck as a 'comic,'
but let me be clear I'm just using that as a shorthand.)
Homestuck communicates its story through a combination of a single
panel of art with text displayed underneath, usually in the style of
an early internet chat log, and narrated in the second person, as
though the reader were the player of some kind of text-based video
game.
Sometimes there are several images. Sometimes the images are
animated gifs. Sometimes there are full blown animations with sound
and music. Sometimes the story breaks out into interactive segments
in the style of point and click adventure games or JRPGs. Generally
though, for the most part, there is a large image at the top of the
page and text underneath.
If that sounds like a weirdly cumbersome way to tell a story to you
then you'd probably be right, and you'd probably follow that by
wondering how such an offbeat and experimental format managed to
propel Homestuck to the heights of its popularity. The truth is that,
as with a lot of internet phenomena, Homestuck started small and
managed to worm its way, virus like, into every corner of internet
culture.
I was vaguely aware of Homestuck around the early 2010s, but paid
little attention to it, frequently getting it mixed up with the
Webcomic Shortpacked! That was until my first visit to New York Comic
Con in 2011, where, as I was leaving at the end of my second day, I
found myself surrounded by hundreds of cosplayers adorned in grey
body paint and wearing orange horns. Even with only vague awareness,
I recognised these as Homestuck's titular Trolls.
I was astounded, that in a year of an ascendant MCU, a golden age of
Doctor Who, big releases for games like Mass Effect and Assassin's
Creed on the way, and with Harley Quinn at the height of her
popularity, it was Homestuck fans that outnumbered them all.
I knew then that I had to check it out. I had to know what the big
deal was.
That was my origin story, but for many their introduction to
Homestuck was very different. Homestuck has its roots in the internet
culture of the Something Awful forums. Its very foundations come from
the internet attitude of 'just fucking around.' While Homestuck is
the most well know of Andrew Hussie's works, they truly cut their
teeth on projects like Jailbreak and Problem Sleuth, comedy stories
where they would ask fellow forum users to make suggestions on where
the story would go next. The fact that they crudely drew most panels
in MS paint made these quick and easy to produce.
Homestuck was likewise intended to be another project for 'just
fucking around.' It started with a suggestion box where users were
expected to guide the actions of protagonist John Egbert through the
events of the story. The suggestion box was dropped quickly, however,
as Hussie soon realised it was becoming more bother than it was
worth, but the 'fucking around' would persist through the early
stages of the story, which is why it is considered notoriously
difficult to get into. It is a long, long road of characters futzing
around their households before the story gets anywhere near gray
skinned aliens and time travelling robots.
For a good few years, Homestuck was mostly for the 'fucking around'
audience, but eventually it would break containment, getting
attention from both the shitlords of 4chan and the Social Justice
Noviates of Tumblr, two audiences that would inform its direction for
good or ill. Before long large amounts of fan art, fan fiction and
cosplaying would start flooding the highways and byways of the
internet, drawing in the curious, and eventually its own immense cult
following.
Part 2: Pride Goeth Before Destruction, And a Haughty Spirit Before a
Fall.
Homestuck's golden age was undeniably the years between 2010 to
2014. If I were to go into all the ways it had burst out into greater
sphere of the internet we'd be here all day, but needless to say it
truly made its mark as a cultural icon. Beyond convention centres
being flooded with grey faced cosplayers, the internet being flooded
with (frequently NSFW) shipping fanart, and the comic earning
admirers in minor celebrities like Dante Blasco and Bryan Lee
O'Malley, online drama was quickly becoming intertwined with the
comic, and internet urban legends of fans taking things too far were
a frequent topic of discussion for both fans of Homestuck and its
detractors.
It is hard to pin down what, exactly, secret sauce Homestuck had,
but I suspect being in the right place at the right time had a lot to
do with it. Homestuck was a story that is both influenced by and
a comment upon internet culture. It was one of the first large scale
stories that really understood the way internet friendships, video
game minutia and the prevalence of memes had changed the way we
communicated.
On top of all of that, it kind of had something for everybody. Teen
drama and romance for the shippers. Ironic humour and satire that fit
many internet subcultures. Its visual design was easily identifiable
and toyetic. Most of all it had intensely complicated and
interconnected world-building that made fans of the story feel as
though they were experiencing something of vast importance and to
detractors it made the fandom look like a cult.
More than anything though, Homestuck just managed to fit perfectly
in its place and time. Launching at the tail end of the golden age of
webcomics, and concluding just as the internet was starting to
consolidate into singular social media sites, it feels of a time with
the popularity of works like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,
Adventure Time and Steven Universe, which calcified into its ultimate
form with Undertale (whose creator, Toby Fox, was a frequent
contributor to Homestuck.)
Is it any wonder, then, that Andrew Hussie let the success go to
their head? As a writer that had always kept their personal life very
separate from their public persona, they no doubt avoided some of the
worst types of adoration, but still, going from an internet nobody
who made funny little comics to somebody whose creations were being
cosplayed in some of the biggest conventions in the world would no
doubt cause them to start believing their own hype.
It didn't help that Hussie wrote themself into the comic as a full
blown character. I often find that writing an exaggerated persona of
oneself into a story is a dangerous thing to do. It blurs the line
between the real and imagined self, as well as that between the
private person and the fan perception. To a lot of fans, Hussie was
internet Jesus himself, an honorific they were far from ready to
shoulder the burden of.
Part 3: The Only Way They Could Make Extra Money, Real Extra Money,
Was to Go Out and Cut a Few Corners.
I think I can state that without a shadow of a doubt, the Homestuck
Adventure Game Kickstarter was the biggest mistake Andrew Hussie ever
made.
Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, and it is easy to say that
now, because at the time, it probably made perfect sense to launch
the project in 2012. The comic was at its absolute height of
popularity. Fans were eager to spend money on anything and everything
that carried its official brand. On top of that, Kickstarter had just
become the hot new thing, and each successive high-profile project
was was breaking higher and higher records in total funding raised.
No wonder they wanted to strike while the iron was hot. If they
waited a year or two, they ran the risk of trying to raise the funds
through waning interest in Homestuck. A Kickstarter project buried
under a sea of completing Kickstarter projects. In that context, I
understand why they chose to launch the Kickstarter when they did.
It was still, however, their biggest mistake. Despite having some
working knowledge of game development, they vastly underestimated the
time and resources required to manage even a small project like a
point and click adventure game. They over-promised, and got the
project stuck in limbo for years. At time of writing Hiveswap, the
Homestuck Adventure game, is still only partially completed.
That they had now saddled themselves with this nightmare just as
Homestuck was gearing up towards its spectacular conclusion ended up
being a critical blow that would kill the comic's momentum and do
irreparable damage to the IP.
As Hussie's video game project quickly devolved into development
hell, Homestuck would see more frequent and longer lasting hiatuses
as a result. The word of mouth hype that had long maintained a
lasting reader-base was starting to run out of steam. As ever more
convoluted plot elements were introduced, it was becoming more and
more clear that Hussie wasn't going to be able to deliver a
satisfactory ending.
There is a lot of gossip and hearsay of what went on behind the
scenes with both the comic and the game around this time, but I'm not
here to really speculate and delve into drama. I'm just here to talk
about what we do know with regards to the creative decisions in
public. Even so, it is clear from this time that Hussie was beginning
to lose step with their audience.
By this time the edgelord readers from 4chan had mostly abandoned
the comic and the fans of edgy humour from the SomethingAwful days
had long since grown up. For the most part, the reader-base had
solidified around socially-consonous and progressive types from
Tumblr. This backfired a couple of times on Hussie when they made a
few edgy jokes at the expense of this audience, such as the
introduction of 'Trickster Mode' which explicitly depicted the
characters as controversially Caucasian, poking fun at readers who
tended to headcanon the characters as non-white ethnicities.
This moment backfired so badly that Hussie was forced to go back and
change the sequence. A humbling moment for a writer who was once seen
by their audience as a great 21st Century storyteller who could do no
wrong.
As Homestuck stumbled on, though hiatus after hiatus, it was clear
that Hussie's heart was starting to fall out of love with the comic.
Despite the run up to the conclusion being well received, and a lot
of fans being won over during the final few acts, there was still
doubt that Hussie would actually be able to stick the landing and
deliver a satisfactory conclusion.
Part Four: The Road Goes On Forever, and the Party Never Ends
I don't think it is unfair to say that Homestuck ends more with a
whimper than a bang. Despite Hussie's best efforts to bring the whole
thing together, the final conclusion was felt to be greatly
underwhelming. Certainly that's how I came out of it. While the story
is ultimately wrapped up, and a solid conclusion given to the
protagonists, too many plot threads remained unaccounted for, and too
many mysteries were left without satisfactory explanations.
A final, dialogue free, animated montage assuring us that the
characters were all alive and happy certainly elevated some of the
negativity, but all in all Hometuck left its readers feeling a little
short changed. Its conclusion felt rushed for a story that spent the
better half of a year messing around in its opening act. While nobody
wanted a belaboured and drawn out ending, the general consensus was
that this was all over too quickly for a story of such complexity.
Fans did hold out hope, however, that something was on the way.
Something that would continue the plot and serve as a proper
conclusion. Many expected Hiveswap would end up exploring some of the
elements unaccounted for. Others kept wondering if Hussie would go
back and expand the ending, Mass Effect 3 style, to fill in some of
the gaps and mysteries and give the characters more definitive
closure over the animated montage.
It was clear, however, that Hussie wanted to move on from the
project. They still had a video game that they needed to get out, and
Kickstarter backers had more legal recourse over their time than fans
of a free webcomic did.
That was that. It was assumed that Homestuck was conclusively over.
Hiveswap Act 1 launched in 2017, clearly cementing itself as its own
thing, and after that there was more silence for the next couple of
years.
Then, out of the blue, in 2019, Hussie announced a new entry to the
Homestuck canon. Titled The Homestuck Epilogues, this novel sized,
prose-only story was to be the final conclusion to the epic saga that
the fans had been waiting for. A definitive explanation as to what
happened to John Egbert and his friends, and the world of Homestuck
as a whole.
Except, that wasn't what it turned out to be. Instead, what Hussie
put out ended up becoming quite different.
This is where the shit truly hit the fan.
Despite being called The Homestuck Epilogues, this story served more
as a prologue to Homestuck 2, but, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The Homestuck Epilogues pick up some years after the events of the
main story. John Egbert and his friends are older, if maybe not
wiser, yet all of them can't shake the feeling that something wasn't
quite right about where they ended up. John is then offered a choice,
he can either face and finally kill Lord English, the series main
villain, once and for all, or leave their doomsday monster trapped
outside of time, harmless, but unaccounted for.
From here on the story branches into two timelines, which can be
read in either order. In the timeline where John faces English, Meat,
he is mortally wounded in the final battle and ultimately dies.
Meanwhile Dirk Strider, who has always been a character of
questionable morals, concludes that people like him, with now
god-like superpowers, have no place living a mundane life. He chooses
to become the villainous heir apparent to English, and manipulates
Rose Lalonde into leaving her wife, Kanaya Maryam, and joining him
for parts unknown in search of new adventures to come.
In the timeline where John refuses to face English, Candy, the story
jumps forwards to many years later. The characters have all grown up,
got married, had kids, some have gotten divorced, and lived a
relativity normal, millennial life. That is until tensions rise due
to increasing xenophobia towards the alien Trolls, and a fascist
state rises around them. Our cast of characters are forced to put
together a resistance to battle the rising threat, only for the story
to end with Dirk from the Meat timeline arriving with intentions
unknown.
What stands out to me about The Homestuck Epilogues is that they
take on the now-familiar story beats of what has come to be known as
the 'legacy sequel.' A story where the protagonists, now older and
changed by experience, are drawn back into adventure along with a
cast of new characters from the younger generation. There are
references to past events and iconography, revivals of fan favourite
characters, and a passing of the torch to a fresh new cast.
So, why did a large chunk of the fanbase have a problem with all of
this? Well, for starters The Homestuck Epilogues are much more
serious and have a far bleaker tone than that of the main comic. The
violence is much more graphic and the sexual content much more adult.
While the familiar ironic levity is there for those who look for it,
this is a story much more about growing older and the world passing
you by. It is very different than what came before.
Additionally, the Epilogues took some of its characters in very
controversial directions. For starters in the Meat timeline,
fan-favourite couple Rose and Kanaya end up separated, leaving a bad
taste in the mouth for readers who held a torch for them and were
glad to see the couple alive, well and married by the end of the main
plot. This was alleviated somewhat by them staying together in the
Candy timeline, though later developments in Homestuck 2 would
exacerbate that.
Another point of contention was the confirmation of a rather
notorious fan theory that had originally developed in the NSFW
corners of the 4chan fanbase. During the events of Homestuck, Jade
Harley merges her physical form with her cosmic space dog, Beq. While
in the main comic very little is made of this beyond granting her
space powers and cute dog ears, the Epilogues make it fundamentally
clear that this merger, without beating around the bush, gave her
male reproductive organs. While certainly this development was left
open to be explored in a more sensitive, mature manner (and there is
no doubt people out there who are more qualified to talk on the
subject than I am,) the rather rancid and fetishistic origins of that
particular fan theory are hard to ignore.
Without a doubt the most controversial element, however, was the
treatment of Jane Crocker. A character in the original comic who was,
for the most part, an optimistic and wide eyed idealist. In both
timelines of the Epilogues Jane becomes the figurehead for a
xenophobic movement against Trolls, and an abusive spouse to beloved
character Jake English (no relation.) To fans of Jane, to those who
spent years doing fan art and cosplays of the character, it was an
unforgivable character assassination to turn her into what amounted
to a secondary villain and indefensible abuser.
While opinion varied on the quality of the writing, which was itself
done by a team of guest writers and not purely by Hussie, the
direction the characters were taken in was a frequent sticking point
for most readers. The fact that the happy and optimistic ending of
Homestuck had now been overridden by this more nihilistic and
depressing status quo was exactly the thing fans didn't want
to see for the characters they had so fell in love with.
For my part, I actually really liked the Epilogues. I liked the fact
that it explored the idea that there isn't such a thing as happy
endings, and that you can't just roll the credits once your teenage
years are over. I like the fact that it confronted the idea that a
final conclusion sometimes involves sacrifice, and that a domestic
happy ever after would ultimately become a breeding ground for
melancholy and betrayal. While I understand the contention at some of
the story decisions, I'd actually defend them for the most part. Sure
it kind of sucks that Jane becomes an abusive racist, but sometimes
even the brightest of kids grow up to be the shittiest of people.
Even so, I get why most of the fanbase didn't like it, and
ultimately, I think using the Epilogues as a lead in to Homestuck's
sequel was always going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths. To
write for them something they really don't jive with, and then you
expect them to turn up for the next big project right afterwards? It
was always going to be a difficult proposition from the start.
I think ultimately some of this stems from the fact that Homestuck
had attracted such a disparate audience over the years. The comic had
always been somewhat of a highbrow exploration of narrative
storytelling and the burden of the protagonist, and it had its fair
share of bleak, violent and serious moments. Some of the audience
were into this stuff, but a lot of them were mostly in it for the
goofs, hijinks and shipping. It didn't help that the lion's share of
Homesuck's audience would have been young teens when they were
reading it, and were probably just old enough to look back on it with
rose-tinted glasses by the time the Epilogues dropped.
Yet, the Epilogues were what they got, and there was no time to
change course, because Homestuck 2 was officially round the corner.
Hussie had hand-picked a new creative team to take the reins while
they presumably continued work on Hiveswap, and this was touted as a
new project for a new generation.
Strap yourself in, things are about to get bumpy.
Part Five: It Begins To Dawn On You That Everything You Just Did May
Have Been a Colossal Waste Of Time.
Before we go any further I need to talk a bit about how Homestuck
deals with the concept of 'canon' from the Epilogues onwards.
The Homestuck Epilogues open upon a page reminiscent of a fan
fiction website. This cements the idea that the story is meant to be
taken as more of a 'fanfic' than an official entry. I get a sense
Hussie knew it was going to be controversial and took this approach
to cover themselves. Likewise, Homestuck 2 would go on to give itself
the subtitle Beyond Canon, hinting to audiences that the project
itself could be seen more of a hypothetical continuation than a
'canon' one.
Now Homestuck has always played with the idea of meta elements,
where 'the forth wall' is something that actually exits in-story.
Characters can disrupt and usurp power from one another by acting
with self-importance and presenting themselves as a 'protagonist.'
The story frequently depicts reality as something that can be altered
by acting upon pre-existing tropes. It also comments on the fact that
these powers can render something 'non-canon.'
All this is to say that there was an attempt by Hussie and the new
team of writers to inoculate the Epilogues and Homestuck 2 from some
of the worst of the criticism on the grounds that readers are free to
ignore these entries. If you don't like where the story goes then
that's okay, it isn't really canon anyway.
Of course, this was well intentioned but misguided. It is true that
we as audiences are free to pick and choose what we want to 'count'
in our fictions. All of it is equally fictional. Just because Disney
said that the Sequel Trilogy would contradict and overwrite the
pre-existing Star Wars EU doesn't mean those stories went away. You
can still enjoy Dark Forces all these years later.
That doesn't mean there isn't still a hierarchy to these things,
however. While we are free to pick and choose what we want in our own
personal Star Wars Canon, it doesn't change the fact that the Sequel
Trilogy is the more legitimate entry. Most general audiences will see
the Sequels as the 'legitimate' continuation of Luke and co's story
over the Dark Horse comics or the Del Ray books.
Likewise, it doesn't matter how much hand-waving the writers do
around Homestuck 2 to say that readers are free to disregard it if
they want to. Readers know that. It doesn't change the fact that for
all intents and purposes it exists as a sequel to Homestuck, and as
the project given Hussie's blessing, there are no greater claimants
to that title.
All this effort achieved is starting Homestuck 2 off with a lack of
confidence in its own existence.
Coming off the back of the Epilogues, and indeed starting as a
direct continuation, many fans were primed to hate it off the bat.
Indeed, Homestuck 2 makes no effort to be accessible as a fresh
start. Those hoping that they could move beyond the plot developments
in the Epilogues and enjoy the sequel as a stand-alone adventure were
quickly disappointed.
Even putting aside the baggage the comic already had, Homestuck 2
undoubtedly has a wonky and stilted start. Where Homestuck began with
an immediate introduction to its protagonist, with a straightforward
and understandable motivation, its sequel instead opens with a
lengthy monologue by Dirk, waxing lyrical on the nature of
storytelling and narrative, his role as either a hero or a villain,
and your complicity as a passive audience. It's heavy stuff, and at
times quite enthralling, but it is a bafflingly cerebral way to open
this new adventure raising more questions than it has time to answer,
and dumping us in the middle of a story involving branching timelines
and alternate universes.
I honestly reckon the story should have started with an homage to
the original Homestuck, with one of the younger generation
protagonists as the point of view character, working towards a
seemingly simple goal and introducing us to the status quo from
there. We could then fill in the gaps via period flashbacks to bring
us up to speed on what has happened in the meantime.
Instead Homestuck 2 essentially jumps back in to where we were left
off in the Epilogues, with characters caught mid drama and
pontificating on where they feel things all went wrong. It isn't bad
storytelling. I actually found a lot of the drama and character
conflict quite well executed, but, again, none of this was ever going
to win over the doubters, of which there were many, and Homestuck 2
would quickly gain a reputation as a train wreck long before it left
the station.
As I said earlier, I'm not here to chat about drama, but I will say
that during Homestuck 2's first year there was a lot of back and
forth between fans and the writers that got heated. Some of the
writers took it upon themselves to push back against the criticism,
and this in and of itself generated even more controversy. This
obviously took a toll on the writers, and the project was paused in
2020.
For many, this was assumed to be the death of Homestuck 2. Even
putting aside the behind the scenes drama, the comic continued to
make creative decisions that divided the fanbase. Rose and Kanaya's
relationship was further fractured with the reveal that Rose and Jade
had had an affair and a baby together, who was christened the rather
groan-worthy name of Yiffany. Jane would continue down the path of
straightforward villainy, while the comic would heap attention on the
revived Vriska Serket, a morally dubious character who was divisive
even in the original Homestuck.
Homestuck 2 went on hiatus mid-story in December 2020, with no real
jumping off point. If it had have died there, that would have been
understandable. The comic had a thankless task of trying to win over
an already sceptical audience, or survive as best it could from the
small cult following of defenders it had managed to retain. The
negative feedback was clearly more than what a lot of the writing
team could weather.
But to the god of death, they said, not yet.
Part Six: You Have A Feeling It's Going to Be a Long Day
"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why
of course you can!"
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925
Homestuck 2's hiatus ended in August 2023 with a team of new writers,
though beyond it dropping the 2 and officially being retitled 'Beyond
Canon' you probably wouldn't notice. Reading the story continuously,
the 2023 update basically picks up right where it left off in 2020.
While the temptation must have been there for the new creative team,
this was no soft-reboot or reintroduction. No changes were made to
the ongoing plot, nor controversial elements retconned.
This, ultimately, was probably the best thing for the comic. Had the
new creative team decided to throw out some of the previous writing
team's work it would have been seen as an admission of failure.
Instead, the new team remained stalwart and committed to Beyond
Canon's original intent, whether fans of the original Homestuck liked
that or not.
To be honest, in 2026, it is actually refreshing to see a creative
team of a controversial work mount a spirted defence. When compared
to Lucasfilm and the BBC throwing The Last Jedi and The Timeless
Child under the bus, it feels almost a rare thing for an IP to stand
by the work instead of desperately trying to kowtow to its most
objectionable fans.
All this being said, there is a palpable improvement to Beyond Canon
from 2023 onwards. The pacing is much more balanced and the direction
made much more clear. Plot points begin to converge, and the overall
conflict is finally set up and introduced. Controversial elements
like Rose and Jade's affair are confronted with more detail and
nuance, though I suspect that this was always the plan had the 2020
team been allowed more time to get there.
Still, with a new creative team and a more professional attitude
towards the parasocial relationships, we're off to the races. For
those Homestuck fans who stuck with Beyond Canon, this is the point
at which they cite the comic 'finally getting good,' though I think
that is a little unfair, as there is a lot to love about the 2020
era, but there's no denying that a lot of Beyond Canon's strongest
elements start to come to the forefront, and the role each divergent
timeline plays becomes clearer.
Not only that, but the greater focus on animation, music and
interactive sequences gives the comic that more classic Homestuck
feeling that the earlier era was sorely lacking. A long animated
stretch that finally explores what it takes for Vriska to truly be
redeemed, for me at least, to be one of the best moments in the
Homestuck canon, paying off a decade's worth of setup and character
development.
For the next few years the comic would bound forward with
confidence, focussing on frequent updates and avoiding lengthy gaps
where possible. By 2025 the comic would have finally got round to
introducing the Nymphs and the Satyrs, two new alien species set to
play the cosmic game just as Humans and Trolls had in the original
Homestuck, and opening a window to more weird societies that serve as
a subtle and not-so subtle commentary on contemporary online
friendships just as Homestuck had originally.
In spite of all of this, Beyond Canon still hasn't won over many of
its detractors. This is probably due to a multitude of factors. First
and foremost is the first impression that it gave back in 2019.
Already controversial on the back of the Epilogues, Beyond Canon was
written off by many as a failure from the get go, and that is a hard
reputation to shake.
Second is the fact that Homestuck in general is already a huge body
of work to embark upon. While a new generation of readers are
experiencing the comic for the very first time, in no small part
because of the animated pilot produced by SpindleHorse (It is too
early to speculate on what impact that will have on the future
of Homestuck,) even just getting through the original Homestuck on
its own is a massive undertaking that a lot of people back out from.
After finishing Homestuck for the first time, I'm imagining there are
many who probably want to have a break before delving into anything
similar.
Thirdly, and most crucially, is the fact that Beyond Canon is being
produced in a different online age and ecosystem than Homestuck was.
The online communities that existed under SomethingAwful and 4chan
have long receded, and even Tumblr is a shadow of its former self.
The fandom of Beyond Canon is fractured and split across multiple
platforms. The unification to spread word of mouth just isn't there.
It probably says something that on the official Beyond Canon news
post concerning fan convention NYCStuck, the creative team expressed
genuine surprise to see fans cosplaying as Beyond Canon Characters.
Part Seven: THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER
So, where does Homestuck, and more pertinently, Beyond Canon go from
here?
I don't know. Like I said at the start, It is almost impossible to
judge if Homestuck is good or not, therefore it is almost impossible
to judge if Beyond Canon is good or not.
Personally? I like it. Some of the more controversial elements do
make me wince a little, but ultimately I'm game to see where the
story goes and where it takes things. I'm happy to see that it is
willing to take risks rather than do things for blatant nostalgia. It
is possible that there are better Homestuck successors out there, I
know that Vast Error has been very well regarded, but ultimately I
can't fault Beyond Canon for being anything other than more
Homestuck.
Ultimately that is the one thing it can't not be. The characters are
there, the format is there, the sardonic humour is there, the overly
complex cosmology is there. If you've been hankering for an
experience like Homestuck since it finished in 2016 then I've got to
be honest, you'd be hard pressed to find a more appropriate
replacement than Beyond Canon.
There's a saying that has been picked up online recently that goes,
"(Insert unpopular thing here,) tastes so good when you don't
have a bitch in your ear telling you it's nasty," and I think
that's how I feel about Beyond Canon. If you go in having heard about
all the complaints beforehand then you're going to force yourself to
hate it, but if you enter with an open mind, put on your good time
hat, and roll with the punches, I think you'd be pleasantly
surprised.
Does it have its problems? Sure, but so did Homestuck. Homestuck
also had many, many problems, controversies and setbacks. In that
regard Beyond Canon is in good company, and probably deserves more of
a chance than it has gotten, especially considering that with
Hiveswap still stuck in development hell, and the fate of the
animated pilot up in the air, Beyond Canon is currently the most
consistently available ongoing source of new Homestuck material out
there.
Homestuck is always going to inhabit this weird point in history for
internet culture. There are still people doing cosplays all these
years later (shout out to the Karkat I saw at Thought Bubble 2024.)
There are still people creating Fantrolls. There are people who were
deep into it who now feel really embarrassed about the zodiac tattoos
they got. There are people out there who are still convinced that the
whole thing is a cult.
Maybe Beyond Canon was a bridge too far into an online era that
doesn't really GET IT, trying to cater for a fanbase that has long
since outgrown it, but it exists, it is there. It's still updating.
It's still evolving. It's still Homestuck. That is fascinating to me.
I can't help but find something enthralling about a project trying to
keep the lights on long into an era that it doesn't belong.
Who knows what is next for the comic? If it manages to soldier on
long enough to execute its big mid-story crisis event, or if it
flames out into irrelevancy for the second time, but as the Byzantine
Empire was to Rome, just because it is a shadow of its former glory
doesn't mean it can't make its own mark on history.
And if not in this timeline, then maybe in the next.
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Jack Harvey 2026. Images used under Fair Use.
