Homestuck Extra Credit Reading

If we're talking Homestuck's body of sitcom allusions: Parks & Rec is, in retrospect, a really fascinating insight into the Obama-era suburban middle-American idealism that fuels Jane Crocker as a character, especially leading into her centre-fascist turn in the Epilogues. At its heart the whole thing is about bending this bright eyed, up-and-coming political girlboss into constant compromise with the libertarian status quo - but, like, as a good thing, cus home of the free and land of the brave or whatever

this is crazy because i haven’t actually read them yet but the original wizard of oz books. i really want read them because the characters stylize the most whimsical and grotesque or even downright disturbing aspects of americana in a way that i can see in homestuck. i mean there are straight up wizard of oz references in homestuck. but the more i learn about woz the more i see how much more its true because a recurring theme in wizard of oz is kinda like the sometimes terrible power of imagination. like this kid is just screwing around and brings a pile of garbage with a pumpkin head to life, and then that being starts calling the kid dad and looking to it for guidance and purpose and the kid is like man…

theres lots of insane characters. the wheelers, the queen who wears the decapitated heads of many women, the scary fucking wooden horse whose life is pain, the bump man and potentially infinite more. also in return to oz the inciting incident is dorothy is in a fucking insane asylum for going to oz jkgsdhjgdhjsvhmshjvdshj

oh man do i have a few!! i'm just going to get the epilogues out of the way first as OBLIGATORY if you want to understand these characters, a lot of people don't even take them into account for their "analysis" which is crazy to me? if you have not read the epilogues u have genuinely nothing to say abt homestuck

now i can only list down fanworks bc im on the train on my way to work but yes!! other than Yours Mine and Ours there's Y1200 and JADE ROUTE which r what i think essential if you like dirk roxy and jade specifically u can find them under the spicyyeti collection in fraf here! https://www.fruityrumpus.com/project/spicyyeti

and speaking of jade obviously LIMINAL SPACE by logan which u can also find here https://www.fruityrumpus.com/project/liminal-space i need to reread them bc it's been a while but yeah it's another thing i would consider mandatory

for jake and grandpa harley i'd recommend Don Juan Manlet King which was discontinued but the first few chapters i feel like bring out a lot (also a good insight on grandpa harley and beta roxy which is admittedly something not many ppl look into), u can read what's out in here https://mspfa.com/?s=32979&p=1

and speaking of discontinued (RIP) House of Dirk which is just a good read and a fun exploration of dirk and caliborn https://mspfa.com/?s=31599&p=1

i haven't gotten very far into Riddle of Dixy yet but its also an exploration/insight of beta dirk and roxy and their life under skaianet and a friend who i trust highly vouches for it :P (english translation discontinued, it's still being published in russian i believe) https://mspfa.com/?s=34948&p=1

(addendum i think reading skaianet is important too! read skaianet!!)

and the last one that comes to mind is the paradox space comic vrisky business found here! https://imgur.com/gallery/vrisky-business-paradox-space-comic-Gf4CXOP

I feel like a very obvious answer here is the existing author commentaries (once you've read through a first time or if you can have someone filter them to you sans spoilers if you are on your first time), you can very clearly see hussie begin to hint at and play with the ideas that would and did become the epilogues and post-canon and I think if we ever do get them for the latter half of homestuck that trend will probably ramp up even further, I genuinely would not be surprised to see ones really laying out for the reader the seeds of jane and dirk's post-canon heel turn or more discussion of what the ultimate self is.

Otherwise ppl here have recommended a pretty good body of works. Uhhhhhh... good musical with some metanarrative themes is into the woods you can see that free on youtube.

Otherwise my main recommendation for "extra credit reading" is like, read through homestuck a second time intentionally looking for literally anything that could be part of a trans reading for various characters. Find other people who are reading it and compare notes with them. Do a book club even with a focus on teasing out as much transgender analysis as possible this is not a joke I don't care how stupid one thinks the evidence they've found is even "hammers are phallic objects and john allocates them to his strife specibus before being told that allocation is permanent and being annoyed by that and later we also find out specibus allocations are not actually all that permanent" can be a good place to start.

re: wizord of oz

i think often about how, in order to prevent her from ascending to the throne, the princess ozma of oz was turned into a little boy, made to forget about the fact that she was ever a girl. and then she was raised by a (different) wicked witch, and then after a long journey and she meets glinda, who made that wicked witch turn her back...

and then she became dorothy's girlfriend.

re: rozie

WHATTTTTWHATWHAYAJWAHWYAHW WHATTT SKLSNFLSNDOANEIQJEJQNDKWLQEJ WHAT?!2!2!1?3!2 SEE. THIS IS WHY I NEED TO READ THOSE FICKING BOOKS!

I JUST WATCHED HAVEN FINISH FNAFWORLD. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH YOU NEED TO PLAY FNAFWORLD. FNAFWORLD IS VITAL. fnafworld is the epilogues of five nights at freddys. its. so. needed.

spoilers////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////

at the end of the game you (freddy fazbear) find scott cawthorne in his office and he talks about how he feels hes sold out with his upcoming game (sister location) and how he doesnt want to disappoint people and basically just wants to be a good artist. then he SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FUCKING HEAD AND BLEEDS OUT ON HIS DESK.

WHAT??????????????????????????????????

////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////////////////////////spoilers///////////////////////spoilers

I remember being oddly invested in fnafworld when it came out, despite having almost no interest in fnaf, it's the way it felt *off* kind of in contradiction to the rest of things completely differently styled, almost leaning more into the things to my understanding that an embarressment of lead to fnaf in the first place, maybe i should look at it with fresh eyes sometime

i get what you mean about that. Fnaf World is the most... suicidally ideated piece of art i've ever seen. in a literal and a creative sense. he had a lot going on.

OTHER ANDREW HUSSIE WORKS WORTH DISCOVERING

- The unfinished novel Wizardy Herbert (absolutely unique work, and INCREDIBLY Hussie)

- Whistles: The Starlight Calliope

- Problem Sleuth

- Psycholonials

MAIN HOMESTUCK INFLUENCES

- Neverending Story

- Earthbound

- Lost

- Saw

- Arrested Development

- Donnie Darko

- The Sims

- Spore

- Little Monsters

- Hook

WORKS THAT CAN "SCRATCH THE ITCH"

Unrelated to Homestuck, but with a similar density of concepts, ingenious time paradoxes and/or meta elements

- Dune

- Neon Genesis Evangelion

- Legacy of Kain

- Terra Ignota

- House of Leaves

For every influence Hussie wore on her sleeve there's one she pretended to have never heard of. But like, that's kind of just how writing works. It's exceedingly difficult to not be influenced by something you've read before. Even if the only thing you get out of it is "wow that really sucked." Anyways:

Mark Twain. One of the only people in history who earned the job title "humorist." Man knew how to put the spin in a yarn, and there's a direct parallel of him that fucks The Condesce. I will give particular notice to The Mysterious Stranger, an unfinished novel about the devil's nephew.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Also went unfinished. It revolves around a man who is buying the contracts of dead farm workers (read: legal slaves) from landowners in imperial Russia. The background of Act 6 involves amassing a ghost army. If you're wondering, Hussie pulled a poem about horses from it.

Insane Clown Posse. Yeah really. Honestly you should take a rap tour in general but let's start with the one literally in Homestuck. I'm not telling you to binge the discography, but look around. How ICP responded to the culture around them in their work and wound up creating their own subculture because of it is a blueprint for the ways Hussie criticizes general society in Homestuck. The real Dark Carnival is a series of concept albums describing the weird and crazy belief system of ICP and their fans. Which turns out to be Christianity. I am neither exaggerating nor interpolating here. I mean there are non-christian juggalos; it's not like an actual sect thing.

Like a general wikipedia dive on some of the named esoteric stuff would help you. I know enough about say, western alchemy or gnosticism to not be confident in recommending a specific text to read on either of them.

This whole thread is part of what is so interesting about Homestuck. It pulled from so many sources and alluded to so many other ideas that are fleshed out in other sources that exploring those sources and ideas deepens the text in really fun ways.

@spicyyeti @wickedgoogly
I always noticed the wizard of oz like surface connections but I never thought deeper into it because the wizard of oz was one of the most influential movies ever made, but you bringing it up again really makes me think on it more. The cowardly lion-jake/tinman-dirk/scarecrow-roxy/dorothy-jane connection is fascinating once you really look at it, and then the whole thing with terezi and the ruby slippers and jade and the ruby slippers, and something about how we only focus on the shoes when folks can't go home again, and jade in the doomed timeline getting killed like the wicked witch under a house, poetic cinema

@spicyyeti

Also I was wondering why fnafworld resonated so hard, it plays like an openbound flash game! Like i realize now with fnafworld I expect a dancestor around the corner. Combine that with the metatextual themes and the themes of authorial intent and suicidal ideation makes it a really compelling parallel

@perigator
The trans thing is completely real. Honestly the biggest trans evidence in homestuck for me is the beta trolls' haircuts. Who else would have styles like that if they didn't do it in their own bathroom with a pair of scissors/electric razor and a gender dream. Tavros has a mohawk, sollux has zigzag bangs, and if homestuck was written today vriska wouldve had a mullet and/or wolf cut

@jakemorph

The call for parks and rec and jane's character is beautiful. Pointing out the sort of americana glaze on everything jane loved actually explains at least half of everything about her. It also applies to her interest in the noir detective genre which also has that sort of,,, expectation of the 'american way of life' to it. Those kinds of influences are brainwashing all on their own lmao

A fun callout that I haven't seen yet but realized recently is Peter Pan. Aside from the classic Tavros vriska stuff there is an interesting Gamzee connection. Makara comes from the hindu astrological equivalent of capricorn. Makara also means crocodile. Gamzee eventually becomes part of a large reptilian time beast that eats everything, and in Peter Pan there is the tick tock croc. This is a loose connection but interesting to think about.

And of course before I forget 17776, infamously like homestuck. I feel like it expresses isolation and then connecting with others via chatlog and random shared interests in a similar vein to homestuck, with similar success.

catch-22 and especially house of leaves are two great postmodern* books that i'd recommend for anyone who likes homestuck. house of leave's connections are pretty obvious, and catch-22's giant cast, slowburn pacing, overly convoluted nonlinear plot, unexpectedly comedic focus, and general tone & themes are all very relevant. been meaning to read infinite jest for this reason too!

a little more esoterically i'm also starting to rekindle an old interest in mythology (reading the iliad right now) and given homestuck's place as a "modern creation myth" i wonder what light reading ancient mythology, religious texts, etc will shine on it? probably not that much unless hussie is secretly a religious scholar but the way "god tiers" work is pretty reminiscent of something like the greek pantheon (who are referenced in the browser names!), and i'd like to learn more about gnosticism to maybe 'get' in more detail what's going on with homestuck's gnostic references.

Coming here to say that if you enjoy multimedia storytelling that's not really in comic form and has an active community, you might like the Multimedia Web-art project, Welcome Home.

https://www.welcomehomerestorationproject.net/

The Welcome Home Restoration Project is a Horror web art multimedia story about an old, abandoned children's show from the early 70s called Welcome Home. You "read" the story by exploring the website that is being hosted by the only member of said Restoration Project. However, the website has many secrets that the Restoration Project manager has been chronicling. They suspect heavily that one of the puppets from the show, Wally Darling, is sentient and is trying to contact him somehow. It's a really great project, it's super fun to get into. Some people call it an ARG but the creator has stated it's not really an ARG since this is just an active story being told and there's no "game", you cannot visit the previous websites anymore unfortunately after they moved it to Wix.

But many members of the fan community like Night Mind have made Youtube videos that tell you the story so far and how to access some of the more hidden secrets. I think anyone who adores how meta Homestuck gets with the fact its a comic will enjoy this, especially if they're into spooky things lol. Also if you enjoyed that Homestuck was both a comic and a game and also something you could watch via flash animations, then you'll really like this as it tells the story about the old defunct tv show through various ways.

@Andria

I really like you bringing up the Illiad and the concept of godtiers in relation to greek mythology. Epithets really are the base of godtier titles, at least is feels like that to me. Like Apollo the Averter of Evil and Poseidon the Earth-Shaker have similar vibes. IE Name the muse of space or xyxy the sylph of breath. Even the way the dersites and prospitians speak of the players echo this kinda rhythm. It is especially visible when the white queen speaks

@elegantSpinstress

I like all your ideas, and welcome home has a distinct media feel that categorizes homestuck and others of its ilk. The way that you have to work with the media to collect information and how it isnt just handed to you. I also keep coming back to your original recommendation of Gurren Lagan.

Another idea that resonates with me within this headspace, is the fact the Dungeon Meshi is the perfect anime to watch to understand the Life aspect. From the consumption of food as not only a necessity but a pleasure, from the refusal to accept death, to the act of showing starvation as the worst evil, to the greed of the dungeon and everyone in it, it's perfect.

I've been listening to the Wizard of Oz books at work cause of this thread. It turns out in the same book where the boy Tippi is revealed to secretly be Queen Ozma, the Emerald City got conquered by MILITANT SUFFRAGETTES who forced all the men to do housework instead of women. It's only when Tippi gets turned back into a girl that the ROWDY FEMINISTS get deposed by the rightful ruler Ozma -- so on a wide plot level I got a kind of negative pressure out of it, idk

At the same time, Tippi tries to reserve the right to go back-back to being a boy if he doesn't like being a girl and Baum kind of implies the men are losers for whining so much about work they ordinarily make the women do, so it's not like unilateral or anything. I also haven't gotten to story where Ozma kisses Dorothy yet

ok since no ones mentioned it so far I highly recommend some of the movies seen in Jake's room especially monty python and the holy grail and the princess bride being ones I see throughout Homestuck as inspo also cuz some of those movies like the early x men/ marvel movies even being stated to have influenced I think some of the trolls n powers and also in regards to lord English, Jake and the alpha sessions characters last one in my recent memory was the skull rider movie but there's a bunch in his room alone that just adds onto the alpha group as a whole (weekend at Bernie's is important to HSBC in a way I feel will be more relevant than ever just watch it) avatar one and if we really want to go there 2(not a fan of it at all the only reason I saw the second one was cuz my dad loves alien stuff and was a hard watch but if you look at it in a HSBC way or "wow Jake would have thrived if he watched this one" I guess)

keyword some in the beginning Jake's taste is not at all the best :p but go for it semitrashy movie binge with better ones mixed in there