Homestuck Re-read Part 1: Introduction
So, in case my name being J4d3 Harley didn't tip you off, I am a fan of little known web comic Homestuck. I read homestuck properly for the first time in, I want to say 2016? I'm pretty sure it was, because it had finished by the time I started reading it. Admittedly I wasn't really into it starting out since I was only reading it for a boy I was dating (Oh, how things change), but it went onto become one of the most important pieces of media in my life so far. When I came out as transgender I named myself J4d3, I met most of my current friends through homestuck twitter (while managing to avoid 99% of the drama) and it got me through some rather tough times. It is an incredibly special work of art to me.
2025 has been a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to homestuck, with some massive announcements like the animated pilot as well as some drama that I don't particularly feel the need to talk about. One of the big things to come out of it though is the revival of the actual homestuck.com website that fell into disrepair for a long time. The revival is slow however, presumably to roll out new features on the site over time rather then all at once; but it is presented as a re-read-along. The return of upd8s ::::3.
It may not be the 13th of April, but it is 9/11. Well it was yesterday. Two towers fell, a man was killed and a lot of people got very upset, and they released the first 200 pages of Homestuck.
Let Me Tell You About Homestuck
A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!
What will the name of this young man be?
Last time I read these words I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It's weird reading them again knowing what's to come.
I guess this is where I need to make some decisions about the format of blogging this. What parts will I comment on, what will I skip over. Etc, etc.
Character Introductions and Joining Your Friend Group's Thousandth Discord Server
Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY. A number of CAKES are scattered about your room. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes.
What will you do?
I guess the format we're going for is me talking about parts of homestuck that resonate with me, for whatever specific reason. I guess the first thing I'm going with is "This introductory paragraph for John Egbert, first of many homestuck character introductory paragraphs, reminds me of feeling weird about a thing that I'm not sure if only my friends do because a lot of the time it gets modeled after this"
Does anyone elses friends normally include a introduction channel on their discord servers? My friends do, and I don't get Why. I don't have a problem with it, I just feel weird talking about myself like that. I want to know why we do that. I want to know if we're the only people who do that?
Anyway, moving on.
CAPTCHALOGUE THEM IN YOUR SYLLADEX
(Page 7 of Homestuck)[https://homestuck.com/001907] introduces us to a staple part of the homestuck universe, captchalogue-ing(?) and sylladices. You have no idea what those actually are though. I do, however, and will now talk about them. The sylladex is what many of the characters in homestuck will use as an inventory, like in a video game, to carry objects around with ease. Objects placed in the sylladex are placed in a sort of hammerspace until retrieved using a Fetch Modus (which we'll talk about later, when they get mentioned). They become represented on cards with a captcha on the back which are able to, uniquely identify any 'object' in any state that could possibly exist ever with an 8 character hash, which is impressive.
This is all literal in the universe(es?) of Homestuck and not an abstraction for the reader's (in)convenience, and will lead to many confusions and wacky hijinks down the road. It does make more sense once you've seen the whole process in action a bit more.
OOPS THEY MENTION FETCH MODI ON THE NEXT PAGE
I should have read ahead before saying that I'd talk about later, since they get mentioned on the next page.
Fetchi Modi are how characters retrieve items from their sylladex. Naturally it is not 'At Will' where the character can just pick something, that would be too easy. The first four we see in homestuck are data structures, with the first being a stack. John cannot EQUIP his fake arms, as they were captchalogued before the smoke pellets which sit atop the structure. Later, John will swap it for a queue, allowing him access to the first-most captchalogued item.
I think I used this to justify to myself reading homestuck instead of revising for my computer science GCSE when I first read it. I did okay on that exam so I have no regrets.
I HATE THE MOVIE DEEP IMPACT
While we're examining John's wall artwork, we look upon his poster for the movie Deep Impact.
This is completely unreasonable of me to hate it, because I've never watched it all the way through, but I loath and detest that fucking movie. And a lot of apocalypse movies. My mother 'watches' them on repeat while doing other things and has since I was a child. I am bored to fucking death of Deep Impact or Armageddon or The Day After Tomorrow and I will fucking kill myself before sitting down and watching one of them.
H3Y COOLK1D, 1S TH1S YOU?
We don't know it yet, but we've just met a real cool kid. But on a more serious note, it's interesting reading the first pesterlog again. Knowing what is going to happen with John and Dave from this point. I like the era-appropriate per-user coloured text, it makes me miss the way older software and parts of the internet were more configurable and customizable by the user. I wonder if that pesterchumb irc client is still a thing.
Speaking of older software and internet websites, if you want to read a post that eulogizes the death of Skype over similar feelings, check out this great post by my friend Serena (who I only met because of Homestuck). It's a great time about a bad piece of software from yester-year. Also, she proof read this blog post for me and for that we should all be eternally grateful. <3
Adobe Flash Player
I wondered what would be done with pages like this. And apparently it was "emulate flash player". I had not heard of ruffle before, but it's good to know something that seems to provides such a turn-key solution exists.
STRIFE SPECIBUS
Much like how the Sylladex is the character's inventory, the strife specibus is a specific slot in the inventory for holding a weapon, that can only include one specific kind of weapon and as far as I remember cannot be changed later.
More weird inventory shenanigans :3
TG: hope you like hammers dude! EB: yeah, that's fine i guess. i can't imagine it's going to be all that relevant.
TentacleTherapist
Back to persterchumb to meet Rose, 1/2 of everyone's favorite inter-species lesbian marriage. It's good to see her pink text again, unburned by The Horrors and Knowing Things. I should say hi to my friend rose.
[S]
[S] John: Play haunting piano refrain. The first of many [S] pages. The song Showtime (Piano Refrain) is played for us, introducing John's leitmotif, a fancy word that I definitely know how to use without looking it up first.
[S] ==>
[S] ==> is, in a way, the title card to Homestuck. Displaying the title with the sun/light insignia and the waving breeze in the background and all. Watching this [S] back, I feel like I've changed a lot. There's something about the very mundane peace it shows before the storm that is coming that I deeply appreciate. I don't feel like I really have the words to explain it.
It is not my birthday, but still today as with all days that have preceded it, something feels missing from my life. I think in a way I blame homestuck for the increasing wanderlust I feel in life.
That is where homestuck (currently) ends, which I am nearly certain without checking is not 200 pages. Oh well, daily upd8s will fix that soon, hopefully.