Homestuck is a little bit of a strange property. It is endlessly referencing things from all corners of pop culture. It is often making up pop culture so that it may then reference it. On top of that, due to the avid fan history and fact that people were theorizing and creating while the comic was going on, I feel confident in saying that homestuck has some of the most interesting extra credit reading so to speak.
I'm asking what things, in your opinion, are required or really great supplementary reading/viewing/playing for Homestuck. Like it's an interesting premise when you think about it. Do you watch the Nick cage movies or karkat's romcoms? Do you read problem sleuth or even the starlit calliope? What about Detective Pony? Jungian philosophy? Hell, what about vast error? revolutionary girl utena or tony hawk pro skater?
I really want to hear people's opinions, as well as why you think so. Heck it doesn't even have to be mentioned in homestuck proper if you think it illustrates or expands upon a concept in homestuck. If you were teaching a Homestuck class, what would be your extra credit readings? I'll go first
Cals Calzone video on Leprechaun romance has the best explanation of the mcguffins, time travel, felt, single player sessions, and cherubs. Summarizes troll romance, leprechaun romance and still has time to explain the most important time concepts in homestuck.
Tex Talks videos on abstraction and Homestuck as computer programming are perhaps some of the most important videos for me. They help explain some of the underlying language present in Homestuck so to speak, at least for me. It makes understanding aspects a lot more doable.
Yours mine and ours is a 2019 davekat halloween mspfa special by muthahomestucka. It has my favorite fantroll of all time Obamaa Davekat. It also explores Dave's character in a really compelling way. I also like using it to explore that sweet godtier immortality angst. Really vibes
shubbabang's ___stuck comics (ie schoolstuck hauntedstuck storestuck hotelstuck) had a really fun take on the troll dynamics. I think I enjoy them the most because it shows that all the trolls get up to mischief. I enjoyed a dynamic that shows them hanging out all the time.
Alice Madness Returns is perhaps my hardest sell. A video game from 2011, I include it here not because it is directly related to homestuck in any way but because it illustrates concepts similar to homestuck in a vacuum that makes them easier to discuss. The planets of SBURB, and even the rest of the sessions themselves, reflect the mindscapes of the people playing it. Alice madness returns is a game entirely about going into a mindscape made into landscapes. It further fleshed out the ideas around strife specibi, planets and alchemitization for me.
I think Dirk fans should watch Guren lagaan to see why Dirk dressing up like Kamina even as a full grown adult and continuing on with his "ironic" enjoyment of the media as an adult is kind of proof that he maybe likes all that cheesy hopeful shit and views himself as this beacon of hope for others to latch onto even if that comes at the cost of their own personal autonomy and choice.
Also bc Guren Lagaan is peak.
i think the most impactful one is easily neverending story. there's apparently a lot more interwoven with the book - red/green duality, narrator figures, et cetera - but i think the movie itself also does a great job of conveying the things i think are the important parts of late homestuck. the post-gameover wasteland of the alpha session is so evocative of fantasia after it's been destroyed by the nothing, and the scene where bastian reads a description of atreyu, sees the horse pin on his bag, and decides atreyu is an indigenous character, bringing in the context of his lived experience into the story, really hits in the context of the ways people tend to play like, paper doll dressup with homestuck characters.
it's hugely influential on the way i think about the relationship between reader and text, not because those ideas weren't already there, but because the way they manifest in the neverending story is so clear in homestuck as well.
SHAPED OR MOLDED FORMS appear to have been formed from a plastic material through directly applied force.
ABSTRACT FORMS are of uncertain origin.
theres also the second half of the neverending story (which i heard wasnt featured in the movie? ive only read the book) which kind of parallells caliborn wanting to lord over fantastica by obtaining narrative control
send me photos of weird and rare electronics equipment
other than that, wizardy herbert (the original draft) is an interesting look into what hussie had been cooking for a long time before the start of homestuck
send me photos of weird and rare electronics equipment
hypnospace outlaw . i dontrally have a reason i just like it
and of course right after posting this im now thinking of more stuff: mother/earthbound and cave story are also big influences (considering "home stuck" is basically more or less a calque of "earth bound")
the homestuck made this world podcast goes over many influences (including forum games from the early 00s web, and the horrible depths of the something awful forums) in detail: https://rangedtouch.com/homestuck-made-this-world/ , and is a pretty good starting point for any other kind of 'what else to read' about homestuck tbh
send me photos of weird and rare electronics equipment
psycholonials is a pretty obvious one, considering much of the story very much reads as being about homestuck and its fandom, but i think specifically it offers a really interesting glimpse into "redemption" and how it's less about atonement and more moving on. psycholonials' central conclusion is about how when you find that whatever you're doing is spiraling out of control and hurting people, sometimes the most impactful decision you can make is not to try and "fix it" but to just walk away. which i feel is an interesting perspective to apply to a lot of homestuck characters.
Speaking more as an Epilogues enjoyer than an enjoyer of base Homestuck, I think that reading ryukishi07's classic episodic VN Umineko no Naku Koro ni (2007-2010, lit. "Where the Seagulls Cry") is good for the health. It has a similar kind of metanarrative premise to postcanon, and being familiar with how it conceptualizes these same concepts can be really interesting. (Plus, Beyond Canon has already referenced it outright in the Meat scenario, so it is technically an influence now.)
Make sure you use the 07th-Mod fan project to restore the excellent voice acting and switch the presentation from "adventure" (tiny text box at the bottom of the screen) back to "novel" (text box covers the whole screen) for best results!
i can't believe no one else has mentioned detective pony by sonnetstuck. canon to me
@elegantSpinstress
Gurren Lagann is peak. It also speaks inherently to Dirk's actually really hopeful nature. Dirk Strider wants to be this cool tough guy, and then wears an icon of hope on his face.
wait, detective pony is mentioned in the op. but it doesn't specify if you meant the original or the fanfic. obviously i meant the fanfic
Seconding Umineko, there is an alternate option named "Umineko Project" if you have good knowledge of Peer to Peer File Transferring Software that has some improvements that 07th-Mod doesn't. Both are perfectly fine ways to experience Umineko, however
Also holy shit American McGee's Alice series mention fucking PEAK. I never really thought about connecting it's landscapes to SBURB's, gives me an excuse for a replay, thanks OP!
That's it, I'm gonna do what I should have done a long time ago.
I'm going to beat him to death with this hammer.
READ BLOODSTUCK https://archiveofourown.org/works/66056185/chapters/170221711
to get the boring out of the way: Problem Sleuth. a lot of Homestuck readers straight up don't get the key bits of what Homestuck is about because they don't get that Homestuck really is just a reboot of the Problem Sleuth concept.
but if we're talking about hard sells... i think the ways Homestuck and Neon Genesis Evangelion end up hitting on many of the same themes and motifs re: adulthood and maturity versus childhood and stagnation are really fascinating. people naturally compare The Homestuck Epilogues and Deltarune a lot these days but I think Evangelion and it's relationship to the Rebuild of Evangelion series is a super essential look into one of the early forerunners of the "epiquel" concept, even if the Epilogues did manage to beat the release of the final Rebuild film by a couple years. Anno pulling the rug on everyone at the last minute to reveal that one of the most enduring gay love interests of the last 30 years is actually the protagonist's dad so he could hook the protagonist up with a random woman he's barely talked to before instead really explains every question you could ever have about the Homestuck sequels, if you kind of squint your eyes and tilt your head and make sure you're just a little fucked in the brain too
>eats somewhere other than olive garden once
>fucking dies
@Jakemorph
Problem sleuth was so good. It really explores the ideas that Homestuck wants to before it gets there. I also miss the posing when shit got real.
Evangelion is also an important example with the way it handles children in combat. Homestuck also wants to say something on that. It's actually interesting to compare them side to side I didn't think of that before, thank you
read umineko
"Without love, it cannot be seen."
I only got about halfway through Problem Sleuth, but in that span I realized that the majority of the comic was just one big reference to the third act of Mulholland Drive. So watch that before reading PS
I’ve read nearly all of Hussie’s other work, and most of it, from Psycolonials to my personal favorite, cool dude and stoner Lo, can enhance your understanding of Homestuck in some way, and is just generally good. Especially Problem Sleuth. I’ve been meaning to get around to Con Air, Starsky and Hutch, and Wizardy Herbert, but haven’t yet. regarding Jungian philosophy, I find it very interesting, but have been too busy conducting a thorough examination of Homestuck using Joseph Campbell’s Monomythic cycle/hero’s journey, which has been extremely interesting and educationa. perhaps when I am finished writing my analysis I will move on to Jung.
This is some straight up delirious biznasty, Dawg!!
Modern Cannibals by Bavitz is a really interesting, albeit quite cynical, take on the relationship between art, artists, and fandom. It is also literally about Homestuck.
i will figure out a good signature. Eventually.
re: Mulholland Drive
HELLO???? big news to me! i will have to reread/rewatch both and see if this holds true... i can see some loose associations but nothing like, concrete.
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Arrested Development seems like a big influence on hs, comedically. very much building up its own language of jokes and gags (much of which is based on pop cultural touchstones), then constantly referencing and remixing all of these. there's vague allusions to AD (a blind lawyer, a rapping ventriloquist dummy), but then more overt references, especially in jane focused parts of part 3 - wall tobias is compared directly to jake, "poppop in the attic" is a joke taken straight from AD.
the candy epilogue especially seems to have a lot of Arrested in it - john is kind of a michael-y straight man, has a teen son whose name is a celebrities first and last (who has a thing going on with his cousin), tavvy has a buster quality to him.
