Homestuck is a webcomic created by Andrew Hussie, styled like an old text-based adventure game; for its first year, readers could submit commands telling characters what to do. The typical page has a picture with a caption below it and the next command below that, linking to the next page. However, pictures often found themselves replaced with animations or full on minigames. All of this was accompanied by a beloved soundtrack composed by a dedicated team incluing Toby Fox of Undertale fame amongst many, many others.
What a Homestuck page looks like
I began my Homestuck journey on a fateful day in August 2023. I thought it looked a wee bit cringe; before I knew it I was on page 5,000. Now I must dutifully spread this infection to you.
With Homestuck's extensive use of Adobe Flash, its discontinuation in 2020 has left the official website grossly kneecapped. Enter The Unofficial Homestuck Collection (TUHC hereafter): a program made by GitHub users Bambosh and GiovanH which lets one read this quirky comic, and its extensive supplementary material, in its original state fully offline.
To get started, you will need both the application itself and the asset pack, both of which can be found at the link above. On startup, point it to where the asset pack is. You can put it wherever you want, but you may as well keep everything in the same folder. You'll then have a few choices to make:
New Reader Mode hides content like side stories and music placement until a point in the story where it won’t give anything away. I’d keep this on if you’re concerned about spoilers
Page numbers can be set to either the page IDs from mspaintadventures.com or the new ones from homestuck.com. This is purely personal preference, for links and bookmarks work across numbering systems
Reading Experience is here because a certain event will edit earlier pages. Like above, Replay will hide these edits on a first reading, for they may be considered a spoiler
With that done, there's one setting that deserves especial mention:
Controversial Content
Mr Hussie's work is no stranger to racy content (in more ways than one) and some pages were later modified because of it. TUHC lets you turn it on or off; they're off by default.
Ten early Flash pages had to be re-scored because musician Bill Bolin left the team on bad terms
One of those re-scored pages features a song from another removed musician: SolusLunes. Enabling this will still overwrite a Bill Bolin page
One Homestuck panel included a joke related to a character's race, though not in a disparaging manner
A Paradox Space page featuring a non-human's insides was considered too graphic, so was replaced with a written description
The text files hidden on skaianetsystems.com feature lesser known historic figure Adolf Hitler (in a negative light mind you). This one has the weakest reason to be hidden; you actively have to seek it out
For your first reading, I advise keeping everything on less (2); it's important to view any piece of art as closely to how the creator originally intended as possible, so that you may decide for yourself whether what's presented is objectionable. Besides, none of it's that shocking anyway.
Mods
To my surprise, TUHC has a modding scene. Many add-ons improve the reading experience in many ways. Here are my favourites:
Text Color Adjustments by SSM24:
Some characters’ text uses bright colours which may be hard to read. This will swap those for colours easier on the eyes
Rex Duodecim Angelus by Ariah:
Adds a well-known fan animation at an appropriate point in the comic. It’s bloody good. Watch it
Social Links/NewsSocial by wheals:
Appends Mr Hussie’s most recent blog or social media post to pages at time of said page’s release for both Homestuck and Problem Sleuth. May be funny or interesting
The Homestuck Commentary Mod by GiovanH:
Appends author’s commentary to certain pages. These may contain spoilers, so I wouldn’t add this on a first reading
UHC POV Cam by FlaringK:
A port of a Chrome extension which TUHC adds extra buttons to pages for each character on-screen, leading to the character’s next appearance. A great tool. This will disable arrow key page navigation shortcuts
Homestuck Epilogues by FlaringK:
Adds the Epilogues to the Collection for easier reading until they’re supported natively. There's one for Homestuck^2 as also, but I couldn't get it to work
Reading on Mobile
For a mobile user, TUHC is out of reach for now, leaving two main options:
TUHC web version: Most text is reasonably sized on mobile devices, but buttons and page links are very small. Flash elements are handled by an emulator named Ruffle that needs Javascript and WebAssembly. Bear in mind that Ruffle is still in early days, so your mileage may vary
The official website: Homestuck's then publishers, VIZ Media, have attempted to re-create Flash pages with Javascript; this mostly works, though at a lower quality, but interactive pages will often behave unexpectedly or not play at all. Notably, the EarthBound-style walk-around pages are replaced with very long slideshows
I fully admit I have more experience reading on desktop than mobile, so any other ideas are graciously welcomed.
Reading Order
If you just want to know what all the fuss is about, you can read the main comic from start to finish with no issue. However, there are many bits of side content included in TUHC. Reading these is not essential, but doing so gives you the right to feel smug for understanding the many inside jokes, inspirations and references present in Homestuck. New Reader Mode will unlock these as you go along.
Jailbreak, Bard Quest, and Problem Sleuth: The first three MSPA comics are very enjoyable in their own right. At a measly 1,855 pages, why not?
Team Special Olympics: Mr Hussie's older works before even MSPA. I personally like The Starlight Calliope as well as And It Don't Stop
Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff and The Blog of Dave Strider: May be funny
Mr Hussie's Blogs and Q&As: May also be funny. Best experienced with the Social Links mod above
Paradox Space: An anthology of fan comics commissioned by Mr Hussie, mostly being side stories and what-ifs
Once you are finished with the comic proper, I'm afraid you're not done yet.
The Snaps: A series of Snapchat stories from the perspective of many characters after the end of Homestuck. Whilst decanonised by the Epilogues, they're still a fun watch
Skianet Systems: This now defunct website had some backstory hidden in its source code; it has thankfully been preserved in the TUHC
The video games: Released in the order Hiveswap Act 1, Friendship Simulator, Pesterquest, Hiveswap Act 2 and two more acts yet to be released. I have not played any of these, so I cannot comment on their value for money. Be warned, Pesterquest contains Epilogues spoilers
The Epilogues: Taking place several years after Homestuck. It's styled like an AO3 fanfiction and, depending on who you ask, it may feel like one too. I'd read the prologue to see if the setting works for you
Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon: The most recent, and currently ongoing, project. This one's styled more like the original. Again, I suggest giving the prologue a go to see if you like it
That's all there is. If you've any questions, please feel free to contact me. Happy reading!
See Also
MS Paint Fan Adventures: Many in the fanbase have created their own works inspired by Homestuck; this is the biggest collection of said works. Be warned that it contains excessive advertisements and requires a Google account to log in. So I advise using bookmarks to keep your progress and an adblocker
Homestuck timeline: More detail on Homestuck's history with light spoilers. Requires Javascript
Homestuck.net: A directory of Homestuck resources that knows know equal
