Homestuck

Homestuck is a multimedia franchise by Andrew Hussie. The Homestuck franchise consists of an online webcomic of the same name, which ran from April 2009 to April 2016, and various sequel and spinoff materials set in the same universe. Homestuck is the fourth entry in the MS Paint Adventures series, a collection of webcomic by Andrew Hussie that share stylistic elements.
The primary narrative of the Homestuck follows a group of teeangers that play Sburb, a reality-altering video game that faciliates the creation and destruction of universes within a larger multiverse, with the plot following their efforts to complete the game. Notable qualites of the comic include its extreme length, complex and nonlinear plot, and its use of various aspects of Internet culture such as Adobe Flash and chatlogs.
After Homestuck's initial debut, the comic gained a extremely large and intense fandom over time. Homestuck's fandom became notable for not only its size, but for a wide range of fan activities, fanworks and conflict between fans. The fandom's size and activities has had an impact on fandom and internet culture as a whole, and the fandom has been the subject of news articles and contemporary internet and fandom studies.
Homestuck's success has resulted in the creation of official sequel and spinoff materials, many of which are set in the same universe as the same comic. This includes The Homestuck Epilogues, Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon, Hiveswap, and Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff, among other projects and works.
== Canon-Fandom Relationship == 
Initially, Homestuck was developed as an interactive quest, modelled after old-school adventure games, allowing readers to submit commands. However, by 2010, the fanbase had grown significantlyGoogle Trends, Homestuck. (Accessed 11/15/2021), and Hussie found that reader commands were "too unwieldy and made it difficult... to tell a coherent story." Despite closing submissions for reader commands, he still "visit[ed] fan blogs and forums" to figure out small things to add into Homestuck.Stuck on Homestuck: How Andrew Hussie Turned a Tumblr Craze Into a Teenage Empire archive-date=October 5, 2012
The canon interacted unconventionally with the Fourth Wall. Fan music and art contributions appeared in canon, as did references to Tumblr, shipping, furries, and fanon. The villain Caliborn resembles a caricature of "bad fans" in contrast to enthusiastic fan artist Calliope. Caliborn has a real Deviantart and commented on a fanartist's work. Eventually, the MSPA Reader became a canon character.
Homestuck fandom developed an unusual "update culture" in response to the unpredictable schedule and plot. The comic had no consistent schedule, updating frequently at some points while having long hiatuses at others. The uncertain pace of the story is credited for the fandom's dramatic booms and lulls in content, as well as reactions to story developments. As cancerously put it: 
== Canon Overview ==
Homestuck begins with four children, John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley, who play a reality-altering video game that brings about the end of their world. The adventure is characterized by time travel, mystery, pop culture references, and numerous gory deaths. The cast later expands to include dozens of aliens, alternate versions of the kids and their guardians, various eldritch horrors and strange beasts, and meta characters such as the author himself. The game is played multiple times, plot threads are tied into Gordian knots of confusion and hacked apart, and many incredibly self-indulgent tangents are embarked upon.
The webcomic consists of six acts of increasing length, totaling over 8,000 pages. Homestuck has also expanded into a franchise with tie-ins and continuations in a number of mediums - see Homestuck content below.
: See List of Homestuck Terminology
=== Characters ===
* Beta Kids: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley
* Beta Trolls: Karkat Vantas, Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Nepeta Leijon, Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Serket, Equius Zahhak, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora and Feferi Peixes
* Alpha Kids: Jane Crocker, Roxy Lalonde, Dirk Strider and Jake English
* Alpha Trolls: Damara Megido, Rufioh Nitram, Mituna Captor, Kankri Vantas, Meulin Leijon, Porrim Maryam, Latula Pyrope, Aranea Serket, Horuss Zahhak, Kurloz Makara, Cronus Ampora and Meenah Peixes
* Cherubs: Calliope, Caliborn
* Guardians: Nanna Egbert, Dad Egbert, Mom Lalonde and Bro Strider
*Other: Andrew Hussie, MS Paint Reader
=== Homestuck content ===
Though the most significant piece of Homestuck canon is the webcomic, there are multiple stories set in the same universe, variably considered canon.
* The main webcomic, Homestuck (April 2009 - April 2016) by Andrew Hussie
* Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, a series of comics by Andrew Hussie presented as created by the character Dave Strider and used for in-universe memes.
* Hiveswap Act 1 (September 2017), a point and click video game set in the Homestuck universe.
* Hiveswap Friendsim (April 2018 - December 2018), a visual novel "friendship simulator" set on Alternia and featuring characters set to appear in future Hiveswap acts.
* The Homestuck Epilogues (April 2019), a "dubiously canon" continuation of Homestuck written in prose by Andrew Hussie, Cephied_Variable and ctset with additional contributions by Lalo Hunt and Aysha U. Farah.
* Pesterquest (September 2019 - April 2020), a visual novel and sequel to Hiveswap Friendsim where MS Paint Adventures Reader meets characters from Homestuck.
* Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon (October 2019 - present), a sequel to The Epilogues and created by a team of contributors, outlined by Hussie, and written and directed by Aysha U. Farah, Lalo Hunt, and Pip Dillistone.
* Hiveswap Act 2 (November 2020), the second act of Hiveswap
==== Side Content ====
The following properties are relevant to Homestuck but not considered canon.
* Paradox Space comics, written by various authors and artists to be canon compliant with Homestuck.
* "The Intermission": From 15.1.2010 until 2.9.2010 Hussie posted "The Intermission", a chapter that was, at that time, not directly connected with the rest of the storyline. It included many new characters and time travel shenanigans, making it difficult to follow. Features The Felt and The Midnight Crew.
* MS Paint Adventures written prior to Homestuck.
** Jailbreak, Bard Quest, and Problem Sleuth: These previous MSPAs are referenced (and at some points linked) in Homestuck but not a part of its canon.
* Assorted works by Andrew Hussie prior to and after MSpaintadventures.com
* Namco High, a freemium browser-based dating sim featuring characters from Namco Bandai's video game franchises. Andrew Hussie was the project's creative director, and three Homestuck characters were included, Terezi Pyrope, Jane Crocker, and Davesprite.
* SkaiaNet, a series of writings by Andrew Hussie relating to Homestuck, posted on January 1, 2019 and retracted almost immediately after.
== Fandom ==
Homestuck has a reputation as a difficult read for several reasons. The beginning is heavily gag-oriented and the plot is slow to start, absent many of the popular aspects recommenders may have mentioned. The comic is extremely long and the plot severely convoluted, with numerous characters, timelines, and universes. The size and rich history of the fandom, encompassing huge quantities of fandom meta and fanworks spread over multiple sites, as well as years of complicated, wanky fandom history, are also intimidating. It is also worth noting that large swathes of Homestuck discussion, fanworks, and history are no longer accessible, due to the forum outage and various other events.
Additionally, Homestuck has many passive fans who enjoy the comic but participate little in the fandom. These fans rarely participate in the intense, complicated theorization common on parts of Tumblr and the MSPA forums.
Many Homestuck fans have pseudonyms based on the characters' chat handles in canon, two words in camelcase, usually (but not always) following the pattern adjectiveNoun. Initials are often chosen for some significance and/or used as a shortened form of address. For example, Calliope's handle is uranianUmbra, or UU. 
=== Shipping ===
Almost every imaginable ship exists somewhere in Homestuck fandom. Stories often deal with interspecies romance in various ways. 
Shipping terminology and nicknames for some popular ships can be found at the list of Homestuck pairings. 
See Quadrants to understand the troll romance system and fandom reaction to it.
===Fandom History===
====Early History====
The early fandom of Homestuck originated on the MSPA Forums, which originally housed the suggestion boxes from which Hussie would take suggestions for the next action in his story. As Hussie began incorporating musical flashes into the story, it also housed the "secret" music forum, and members of the music team were selected from friends and fans who had posted their music to the forums.
Homestuck also has a long-running thread on the Penny Arcade forum, as well as several on both 4chan and plus4chan. Content was mostly created on the forums and reposted anonymously over on the chans. Most of the fanworks were fanart or fan music, though there was a very small fanfiction thread and a growing number of voice actors.
On February 3rd, 2010 MSPaint Fan Adventures was created, a site where fans can upload Homestuck-style comics of their own. The site continues to be active as of January 2025. Adventures on MSPFA feature both canon characters and fan characters.
In the early months of 2010, Homestuck began to grow in popularity. On April 13th, 2010, Andrew Hussie posted the end of act 4 comic, "[S] Descend", which was an ambitious four-minute thirteen-second flash movie. It was the second of the flashes to use art elements from the new art team, staffed again by friends of Hussie's and notable artists from the forum. The unusual nature of the flash drew high viewer traffic. Act 5 Part 1, or "Hivebent," which began on June 12, 2010, drew in still more new readers, since it didn't require knowledge of previous canon to enjoy.
: See Cascade (Homestuck)
On October 25, 2011 Andrew Hussie updated Homestuck with a flash movie, "[S] Cascade", after a hiatus of more than a month. So many fans tried to watch it at the same time that it caused multiple crashes.
The forum's rules strictly forbid any pornography, and in the case of the child characters, anything pairing them with an adult (even in a worksafe fashion) is an infractable offense. In response, someone created MSPAchan, which allowed adult art and fic. Soon afterwards, zombiesauros created Homesmut in July of 2010"Created on 2010-07-06 18:41:06". homesmut - Community Profile. (Accessed March 26, 2011), as a home for the kink meme and as a hub for people looking for adult fic and art. As these memes could not even be mentioned by forum rules, Sockpuppy also created Captchalogue, the worksafe request meme. While the worksafe meme has little traffic, the kink meme is hugely popular, currently gaining about 300 comments a day.The current meme had 4496 comments as of March 26th and was posted on March 8th.
The Homestuck Kink Meme moved to Dreamwidthhttps://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/ in 2012, and officially ended in 2016.
====Post-Cascade Popularity====
After the events of [S] Cascade's release, Homestuck fandom exploded in size and popularity. It gained sizeable presence on deviantArt, Livejournal, Tumblr, the Archive of Our Own, Facebook, and miscellaneous smaller sites. Due to its massive, diffused nature, overlap with English-speaking anime/manga fandoms, 4chan origins and large presence on Tumblr, Homestuck fandom does not have a very strong credit culture. It is common to see art reblogged or reposted without credit, and icons, banners, and mix artwork are frequently unattributed.
Because HS fandom is so sprawling, sectioned, and diverse, it is difficult to track or come to consensus about who are or were the BNFs. Many members of the official art and music teams interacted freely with the fandom and became fairly well known. BNFs with no involvement in the canon include voice actor Octopimp, writer urbanAnchorite, writer and fanartist roachpatrol, writer JumpingJackFlash, and Kagerou Luka Delaney webcomic author VastDerp. Others of note are Radiation, Bowman, Ikimaru, Lexxy and SkepticArcher (members of an art and music team), along with voice actor Von Fawn.
Addition to this list, or discussion of it on the talk page by interested parties would be appreciated. 
With the influx of new fans and subsequent flooding of sites with Homestuck related content, Homestuck gained a large anti-fandom. Many anime fans reacted negatively to Homestuck fans' presence at conventions and online. People outside the Homestuck fandom have sometimes been known to be annoyed by the frequency and over-enthusiasm of some Homestuck fans. on Wordpress by Homestuck fan theravengirl, 2013-05-15, accessed 2022-08-01.
Since the flash videos became longer and more complicated, fans started to record and share reaction videos.example: 22.10.2011, Reaction Videos Obviously Deserve Their Own Thread. after [S] Cascade, on the forum Flash videos sometimes inspire a variety of episode tags. Anticipated events (like the Scratch at the end of Act 5) also often lead to much speculating and fic.
For more, see the Further Reading section.
====Ending to Present Day====
Homestuck ended on October 25th, 2016 with the completion of Act 7 and the Credits. Since then, there have been a number of developments with the MSPA and Homestuck properties.
* September 2017
** Funded by Kickstarter, the first of four Hiveswap games was released.Hiveswap Review on Polygon, by Victoria Rose, 2017-09-14, accessed 2017-09-14. The game was developed and published through Hussie's own development company, What Pumpkin Studios NYC.
** Viz Media gained the publishing rights to Homestuck.
* April 2018
** Homestuck moved from mspaintadventures.com to homestuck.com, in anticipation of the impending demise of Flash. Adobe Flash was officially discontinued in December 31st, 2020, and The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is one of the only ways to experience Homestuck as close to its original format as possible.
** Hiveswap Friendsims, dating sim style visual novel games, but with friendship and trolls, were released as an expansion of characters established (or to be established) in Hiveswap. A series of eighteen episodes with two character paths, each with multiple endings, plus and epilogue episode were released from April 13th, 2018 to December 14th, 2018, published by Hussie's inho. 
* December 2018
** During the Tumblr NSFW Content Purge of December 2018, many fan users relocated either voluntarily out of protest, or out of having their blogs made unviewable due to originally having NSFW content. This somewhat broke up one of the larger collective Homestuck communities on the internet.
* April 2019
** 4/13/2019, Homestuck's 10th anniversary, brought The Homestuck Epilogues, written by Hussie and two co-writers. Due to the influx of new fans unused to upd8 culture, team members faced incessant queries as to when the next update would occur. The Homestuck Epilogues begin in an Archive Of Our Own-style format, written in text without images, and in a decidedly more melancholy tone than the comic proper. The reception to the Epilogues has been mixed. Many readers disliked the interpretations of several characters in the Epilogues, feeling them to be out of character.
* August 2019
** It was announced that a hardcover version of the Epilogues would be released through Viz.
** It was confirmed that Hiveswap: Act 2 is still in development.
** A sequel Hiveswap Friendsim, a new series of dating-sim style friendship games based on the characters in Homestuck proper called "Pesterquest", was announced and slated to be released for September 4th, 2019.What Pumpkin announces Pesterquest - "New planet, new friends: Pesterquest begins Sept. 4th", 2019-08-25, accessed 2019-08-27
** 8/8/2019, Andrew Hussie makes his first Instagram post on his new e-boy account, @eboyhussie. Later the account will feature clues that lead to Toblerones that he has hidden around the world. 
* October 2019
** 10/25/2019, Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon was suddenly revealed, featuring new writers and artists. Reception has been mixed.
* November 2020
** 11/25/2020, Hiveswap Act 2 is released
* July 2022
** 7/16/2022, two What Pumpkin Studios employees attend an SAHcon stream to show concept art and assets they're working on for Hiveswap Act 3 
Homestuck Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter are active to this day. Writers and composers such as James Roach, Aysha Farah, and V are active on Twitter. (More info on other sites please!) Major ongoing fanworks include fan comic Vast Error and the Perfectly Generic Podcast.
===Memes===
*Let me tell you about Homestuck was a popular fandom meme.
* Joey The Cosplay Elitist was a wanky meme about cosplay circa 2013.Cancerously's 2014 explanation of the event basically covers it. User gets notoriety for clean execution of a default Homestuck sprite cosplay, makes disparaging comments about others that dramatically overstate the weight of this achievement, becomes meme immortal.
* Karkalicious has been discussed as a meme for years, including spawning its own parody in KARKALICIOUS BUT IT'S HAMILTON.
==Fanworks==
Homestuck has a large community of visual artists, writers, musicians, and voice actors, all of whom have contributed to fandom in their own ways. Fanworks have included digital art, paintings, sketches, mixed media, sculpture, electronically and conventionally produced music, plushes, stories, comics, roleplays, askblogs, stained glass, panels, and uncountable myriad esoteric arts. There is also Homestuck Day (April 13), which is celebrated as a day for fan celebration and sharing of fanworks. Many former Homestuck fans with nostalgia may post only one fanwork a year, on 4/13.
===Fanwork Formats===
Homestuck has a large fanmusic community, due to its large soundtrack and the fact that in the past the Homestuck music team was populated by fans of the comic who had made previous fanmusic. Several of the original members of the Homestuck music team were from OCRemix, and a certain amount of wank followed the early music team as a result. However, it has long since died down, and the main remaining vestige of the OCRemix influence today is the various fanmusicians' use of the term "remix" to denote works that use only the melody of the original, without sampling (usually this is called a cover). The official coloUrs and mayhem albums are made entirely of fanmusic submissions.
Many fanvids in Homestuck fandom are animated with Homestuck fanart, and many incorporate fan produced music. 
Many fanworks imitate the format of the comic, whether through storytelling devices, page formatting, art style, or writing style. For example Nepetaquest (link) by aceofspudz and Be the Sea Dweller Lowblood (link) by ckret2. Many of these comics start on the forum and use audience suggestions (see MSPA Forum Adventures.)
===Common Themes in Fanwork===
Many fans create their own troll or human avatars for RP, known as fantrolls or trollsonas, complete with art and typing quirks. There is a generator available to make them, a wiki specifically for fantrolls, and several forum posts and tumblrsExamples: Fantroll Evaluations, F-yeah Fantrollreviews, fuck yeah awesome fantrolls, and fuck yeah awful fantrolls about fantrolls. 
Post-Sburb/post-Scratch fic explores how the characters cope with the end of the game and either going back to having normal lives or adapting to strange new universes created at the end of the game.
Dave Strider is popularly headcanoned as transgender, and both fic and art have been produced to this theme. Writers also create stories about many other characters exploring concepts of gender and identity, but Dave has been a particular focus.
Trolls are also commonly headcanoned as being hermaphrodites, and their genitals are referred to as bulges and nooks rather than penises and vaginas. A troll will also spew their genetic material into buckets for the incestuous soup of which young trolls are birthed from. See Troll Genitalia.
===Alternate Universe===
Homestuck fandom has a lot of Alternate Universe stories. Many stories are titled with a thematic word suffixed with -stuck, examples: (Hemostuck, Adultstuck, HeartStuck, Hoofstuck ...) This extends to AU concepts - Humanstuck, Trollstuck, Horsestuck, Molluscstuck, etc.
Common AU concepts include:
*No-Sburb AU, (Also sometimes called "No-Sgrub AU" or "No-game AU") where the defining video game frame of Homestuck never takes place. The resultant fics take place either in a familiar mundane world, or in one of the alternate histories/alien planets proposed in the story--the main difference is that the characters continue to grow and develop in their original settings without being uprooted and transplanted as in the canon story. There are also No-Sburb variations where the aliens and humans still meet through some other means, such as an interplanetary exchange student program.
*Humanstuck, where all of the characters are humans, often living in a fairly mundane world.
*Bloodswap, trolls switch roles in the hierarchic society that they belong to, which is sorted by blood color, (see Hemospectrum) (for example Red Dead Virgo by adamantApoplectic and Violetesence by lucidSeraph.)
*Kidswap, where the humans swap guardians, locations, and other various themes and motifs associated with each human
*Speciesswap, where the trolls are humans and/or the humans are trolls (for example (>Connect) by biichan, inverts, renachan, and roachpatrol.)
*Stabdads is a type of Homestuck A/U that involves the exiles of the troll session in their mobster personas, with the trolls they served as their children.
Many stories feature both the kids and the trolls, either in a completely different setting or in a canon AU, even though in canon some of them finally meet only at the end of Act 5. It is not uncommon for elaborate AUs to have an accompanying Tumblr blog for answering questions, additional worldbuilding, reblogging of fanart, and announcements.
==Notable Fan Activities==
===Animation===
* A Lullaby for Gods by Angela Sham. The piece gained the attention of Andrew Hussie which lead to Sham being brought on as an animator at What Pumpkin and working on final animation of Homestuck in 2016.
* Rex Duodecim Angelus is an animated short which billed itself as "an epic tribute to Malcolm Brown's musical masterpiece." It was finished after 3 years of development.
* After Us is an animated music video for the Alternian ancestors–characters.
* Mambostuck is an animated music video.
* Sugoi Quest For Kokoro is a parody series with an intentionally bad art style in which an original character interacts with the Homestuck cast in a high school setting.
===Comics and Fan Adventures===
* 4chords was a popular comic by Emily Hu. Set in a college AU where the trolls where human, the story centered around Gamzee's relationship with Karkat and Tavros. While the comic itself was only 15 pages before it discontinued, it inspired many other fan works. 
* Promstuck/Marchingstuck is an AU collaboration between Shelby Cragg, urbanAnchorite, and cephiedVariable. It's a high school AU with prom, and also marching bands, that can be found spread out over tumblr, the Archive of Our Own, and livejournal.
* MS Paint Fan Adventures is a site that hosts many popular and active Homestuck fancomics. These include:
** Vast Error is a popular fancomic.
** Homestuck: Act Omega, a fanmade continuation, picking up the story of Homestuck after the end of Act 7 and attempting to follow the Homestuck style and themes as closely as possible.
** cool and new web comic, a retelling of Homestuck in the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff presentation style.
** Jojostuck, a crossover between Homestuck and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
** Ke$hastuck, a fan adventure in which Ke$ha and other musicians play Sburb.
** Heinoustuck
** HeartStuck
** Nightfall
** Be the Sea-Dweller Lowblood
** Cataclysmalbound
*JADE ROUTE was a fancomic by spicyyeti, focusing on Jade Harley.
*Liminal Space Comics is a collection of comics by floralmarsupial, now a member of the Homestuck Independent Creative Union
*Y12000 was another fancomic by spicyyeti, focusing on the Alpha kids.
===Analysis===
* optimisticDuelist, an essayist and analyst who creates Youtube videos explaining and exploring the themes and symbolism in Homestuck.
* BladekindEyewear was a popular Homestuck theorist and analyst up to 2016.
===Conventions and IRL Gatherings===
* SAHcon
* Homestuck Dances such as Promstucks, Homestuck Homecomings, etc took place across the US and elsewhere mostly during 2012-2013. Some were paid events with rented space, DJ, etc. Participants arrived usually in themed, formal variants of Homestuck cosplay. 
* Regional Homestuck meetup groups were also popular around 2012, with a mixture of cosplaying and non-cosplaying attendees.
=== Fanart ===
File:Rose lalonde soul eater by reachartwork.jpg|An artwork depicting Rose Lalonde, a character from Homestuck, drawn in the style of the manga Soul Eater by Atsushi Ohkubo. Created using an unknown generative AI program or programs. By reachartwork, 2023
File:Red Dead Virgo Dave Lalonde.png|Dave Lalonde from Red Dead Virgo. By bucketmouse, 2010
File:Marchingstuck.png|Collection of doodles from marchingstuck AU by Shelby Cragg, 2011
File:HeartStuck 2 cover.png|Kanaya Maryam in a schoolgirl uniform with a golden chainsaw, flames in the background, by lovecraftianParadox 2012.
File:Hemostuckcover.jpg|Fanart of Hemostuck by roachpatrol, 2011
File:PromstuckKARKAT.png|Karkat Vantas's face cringing, by Shelby Cragg 2011
File:Red Dead Virgo Kanaya.png|Candy red Kanaya with a swollen eye, by Fauxmonstur, date unknown
File:Red Dead Virgo Vriska and Kanaya.png|Candy Red Kanaya and Brown Vriska from Red Dead Virgo by yubishines, date unknown
File:Red Dead Virgo Karkat and Terezi.png|Rust Terezi and Cerulean Karkat from Red Dead Virgo by Sihira-Hedgehog, date unknown
===Fanfiction===
* The Unwanted Free Ugly Troll series by coldhope is an Alternate Universe longfic with additional shorter works based on the petstuck concept popularized on tumblr. It is by far the most-kudos'd Homestuck fanwork on the Archive of Our Own.
* Real Men Wear Tights is an illustrated John Egbert/Karkat Vantas Alternate Universe wherein the main characters live in a blended Troll-Human Earth society with some characters as superheroes. It is available on AO3 with additional behind-the-scenes material and status updates on the RMWT tumblr.
* Replay Value AU is an Alternate Universe based upon incidental roleplaying in the comments of godsgifttogrinds' Sburb Glitch FAQ that eventually spun off into a full-fledged AU (see Replay Value AU AO3 tag).
* Cities in Dust is an Alternate Universe mixed media story written by cephiedvariable.
* Strider's Edge is an Alternate Universe work by paraTactician, mixing Homestuck with Brideshead Revisited.
* Detective Pony by sonnetstuck - an extensively completed version of the altered version of Detective Pony Dirk gives Jane for her birthday. Now with audiobook and miniseries adaptations by NakedBee on YouTube.
* THEATRE OF COOLTY What happens to pre-retcon Dirk, short film adaptation by NakedBee on YouTube.
* Herding Cats by childishGambino, where Nepeta ships everyone to save the session.
* Hemostuck by roachpatrol and urbanAnchorite, an Alternate Universe where the hemospectrum class order is flipped.
* BONES OF BLACK MARROW by oxfordRoulette, an Alternate Universe where Dirk summons demon Jake. Notable for the extensive use of creative coding, resulting in a CYOA fic with House of Leaves-style unusual layouts.
* M.C. Escher that's my favourite MC, a soulmates longfic by Unda.
* The Only Recipe For Lasagna You'll Ever Need, a recipe-based Johnkat fic by urbanAnchorite.
* The Serendipity Gospels, a Terezi/Gamzee/Karkat quadrant romance fic written by urbanAnchorite and illustrated by Schellibie.
* Starstuck a Star Trek and Homestuck Crossover fic by Phooykazooi.
* Karkat Vantas's Guide to Safe Sex With Aliens by mercurialMalcontent (2012)
* haunt me through my screen a Modern AU, Magic AU and Afterlife fic by nomisupernova.
===Games===
====Video games====
* Dave: Accelerate is a fan-made, playable companion piece to the Flash Update '[S] Dave: Accelerate'. The source code was also made available upon it's release. 
* Nepetaquest 2011 - fan-made RPG, currently being developed.
* Terezi Pyrope: Ace Attorney, Homestuck-version of Ace Attorney. The first case was released in 2012 and the project was later dropped.
* Homestrife 4⅓ - "fan-community made multiplayer fighting game project based on Homestuck", currently being developed.
* The Genesis Project, a fan game that takes players through a session of Sburb.
* Homestuck Strife Project
====Tabletop====
* RPGStuck is a tabletop game based on Homestuck and DnD.
* Tablestuck, a custom TTRPG system based on Homestuck and Sburb
* Paradox space, formerly known as Dungeons and Dragonstuck, a fanmade location expansion of DnD 5e.
===Music===
* Homestuck Gaiden, a multi-album collaboration project produced by the Homestuck Music Team.
:(+ sheet music transcripts)
* Broadwaystuck a cast of BNFs in late 2011-early 2012 that made Homestuck themed parodies of musicals, Disney, and popular music. They inspired several subsequent casted parody projects over the next decade as well as dozens-hundreds of unaffiliated individuals producing their own songs. Notable example tracks: Karkalicious, Stop Being A Sucker
* Ke$hastuck in addition to its fanadventure was a music trend inverse of the above. Instead of Homestuck lyrics on pop songs, Ke$hastuck songs put pop lyric tracks over Homestuck official instrumentals. Notable tracks: Primamanthequins, [S: Ke$ha: Enter]
* PhemieC's Homestuck songs are very popular for their beautiful composition and insight into characters. 
* You Can't Fight the Homestuck! - 2012 song parody of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" performed by Kylee Henke. MadMegatax created a fan video of the song, which has amassed over 5.3 million views on YouTube as of October 2024. 
===Musicals===
* The Baby Is You: a parody musical made by Radiation & friends in 2011 that was deleted due to controversy.
* Homestuck: The Musical (Stage) the one onstage and filmed in Vancouver in 2014 with major musical contributions by Goodnight Lumi
* Homestuck The Musical (Animated) the abandoned one animated with talksprites and canon panels on youtube with major musical contributions by OverlordFombax
* Homestuck the Musical (KingSpirals) an ongoing animated production by KingSpirals Productions on Youtube
* SBaHJ the musical a... "musical" album by "alex" released via Tindeck
* Time's Apprentice an upcoming ancestral musical produced by articulatelyComposed
===Podcasts===
* Pesterchum Radio is a podcast about MSPA made by several fans. Its first season ran from February to October 2011 and had 26 episodes.
* Perfectly Generic Podcast
* Live, Laugh, Stuck (previously Jax Does Homestuck)
* Arm Retrieval Podcast
* The Doomed Timelines
* Sblurb
===Radio Plays===
*Let's Read: Homestuck by Voxus: Similar to a Let's Play or Podfic, a project in which a group of voice actors read through the comic, with actors providing unique voices for every character. Begun in 2016 and still updating as of 2020.
* Hivebent: The Radio Play: A planned full cast production of Hivebent, featuring adaptations of the comic text and original written section. Discontinued after one episode in 2011.
===Notable Fan Projects===
* Eat Mesa: a cookbook of HS-inspired recipes first collected on the MSPA forum.
* Pesterchum: There were various attempts by fans to create "Pesterchum", the chat program the kids use in the webcomic. (history, different versions etc.) The most recent version is Pesterchum 3.41. (usage?)
* Zingled: Zingled is a website (like Omegle) which allows users to chat anonymously with another random user of the site. In early 2011, Homestuck fans discovered the website, and used it to roleplay anonymously as the characters from the comic. It is now almost entirely taken over by Homestuck RPers. Notable logs are posted as fic in themselves or used as inspiration for new work.
* MSPARP/MXRP an active randomized, chat-style RP site that allows character filtering. Expanding into other fandoms.
* Trollmegle/Trollplay a defunct randomized omegle style site that had to change its name for copyright reasons.
* CherubPlay a defunct longform RP site that was not randomized and allowed users to post and browse detailed ads and prompts to find suitable partners. It has since been replaced by [cherp.chat CheRP].
* Whatever that one was that was like Facebook for homestuck roleplay, with profiles and everything??
* Homestuck Shipping Olympics
* Rex Duodecim Angelus
===Cosplay===
Homestuck is a popular cosplay fandom, with cosplays of the kids and trolls being especially common. Many of the characters' signature T-shirts are available at the MS Paint Adventures online store, increasing ease of creation for many of the cosplays. 
Controversy over cosplay is common in the fandom, with numerous arguments taking place over body type and race in relation to cosplay, quality of cosplay, perceived cosplay elitism, the preponderance of Homestuck cosplay at anime conventions, and the huge number of non-canon cosplays among fans. Troll cosplayers were also notorious for their varying success at "going grey."
Before horns were available for purchase at various official and unofficial websites online, it was a rite of passage for a Homestuck cosplayer to make their own horns. Akujin makes just about every pair of Terezi, Sollux and Dirk shades that cosplayers wear and has said that alternate link in reference to the business the fandom provides him.
Homestuck Cosplay (booru) is an imageboard community which shares and archives NSFW cosplay images.
=== Vids ===
* Dirk: Unite Synchronization (WITH LYRICS) by toucanSandwiches (2016)
=== Zines ===
* Homestuck Zine
==Communities & Resources==
* MS Paint Adventures Wiki
* Omegaupdate, the bodged-together replacement for the MSPA forums.
* New Homestuck forums, the new MSPA forum site.
* Homestuck.info
* MSPAChan, the dedicated chan for Homestuck art and fiction.
* Captchalogue, the worksafe Homestuck request meme.
* Homesmut Livejournal, Dreamwidth version, the now-defunct Homestuck kink meme.
* /r/homestuck, the unofficial general Homestuck subreddit, as well as its offshoot, /r/althomestuck.
* #homestuck on Tumblr
* Homestuck works on AO3
* Homestuck fanfiction on FFnet
* MSPAbooru, an imageboard for fanart.
* CheRP, a paragraph-style roleplaying website, based on the old Cherubplay site.
* Homestuck page on KnowYourMeme.
* , a fansite that serves as an archive for Homestuck fanworks.
==Wank and Conflicts==
Like all large fandoms, Homestuck has its share of controversy.
* Suggestion Boxes: Probably the first issue in Homestuck fandom was the closure of the suggestion boxes. Though Hussie had hinted many times that he was phasing out direct audience contribution, the suggestion boxes only closed for good in March of 2010Suggestion Boxes are locked until further notice. (Accessed March 26, 2011) (Archived Nov 4, 2015). The removal was contentious.
* Music Team:In April of 2010, Bill Bolin made a post to the MSPA Forum announcing that he was quitting the music team, giving a several-page-long explanation of his reasons, and culminating in a picture of himself flipping off the camera. Even with the explanation, Bolin's reasons were almost totally opaque without access to the discussions that had preceded his departure in the private music team forum. The confusion over Bolin's exit caused a number of forumgoers to create new threads asking for any clear explanation, which were quickly spammed by those who thought the whole thing was hilarious. Bolin's middle finger enjoyed a brief spate of popularity as a meme before the mods made it clear that stirring up wank over his exit would not be considered acceptable. When his songs were removed from the flash pages in which they were featured at his request, further conflict arose. Fans complained about the replacement songs so often that in November of 2010 the explanation was the second question in the Simple Questions, Simple Answers thread FAQ.
Q: What happened to the music on <page>?
A:Music by artist Bill Bolin was replaced after he caused serious drama/problems with the music team. It was decided all his ties to the project should be cut and thus was the music removed for sale and replaced in the flashes. It will NOT be coming back ever. It's inarguable. You can find links for the old flashes with creative Search powers, but PLEASE do not start on how the animations "don't fit" the new music. Concede your hindsight bias and have faith in Andrew and the music team.
HEY! HAVE A QUESTION? Simple MSPA Questions, Simple Answers Thread!. (Accessed March 28, 2011)
From 15.1.2010 until 2.9.2010 Hussie posted "The Intermission", a chapter that was, at that time, not directly connected with the rest of the storyline. It included many new characters and time travel shenanigans, making it difficult to follow. Many fans who started to read Homestuck later admit (or, in many cases, don't admit) to skipping the Intermission, which is completely accepted in some parts of the fandom (most places on LJ), but led to mockery and dismissal in other parts.
When "Hivebent", act 5, became very popular, several new readers started reading directly at the beginning of act 5. When the focus shifted back to the kids there were heated arguments about which group, the kids or the trolls, were more interesting.
Andrew Hussie is clearly aware of his fans, but it is unclear to which extent and whether he is influenced by them. Especially after surprising updates, some fans regularly accuse him of "trolling" the fans fanon. In May 2011, Hussie made a post on Formspring asking his fans not to sell fanart or any other fan march without his explicit permission.28.5.2011, ANNOUNCEMENT: REGARDING THE SELLING OF MSPA STUFF by Lexxy, post explaining the new rules with quotes from Andrew, accessed 3.11.2011. See Andrew Hussie for more.
Points of discussion and conflict have included: 
* Tension between Hussie and the fandom
* Treatment of characters with disabilities in canon and fandom, esp. Vriska toward Tavros
* Vriscourse
* fantrolls?
* Dave (and others) as transgender in fanon 
* Mockery of bad art, cosplay, fic, etc.
* June Egbert
* Ubiquity of the fandom
;
;Race
* Kids as racially ambiguous/"aracial"
* Headcanon races
* In January 2012 the discussion about whether the four original kids are white or racially ambiguous was fueled by two posts by Andrew Hussie and resulted in a lot of discussion and some wank. 
;
;Shipping
* Perceived fetishization of homosexuality
* Shipping of young characters and Porn of young characters
* John is not a homosexual (canon statement) vs. slash fandom
* Kanaya as lesbian character vs. no homosexuals in troll society (she was confirmed to be attracted only to women in a post on Hussie's formspring)archived (original post on Hussie's formspring no longer exists)
* Shipping of gay characters (Kanaya, Dirk) in het relationships
* Incest shipping -- for a tl:dr, John/Jade (Prospitcest) and Rose/Dave (Dersecest) are partway through the comic revealed to be adopted and biologically related. Though in canon they were not explicitly in relationships, many fans or readers considered them to have chemistry (and some continued shipping). Whether they should be "shipped" after the reveal is a point of tension in some circles. Stridercest, Calliope/Caliborn and other incest ships also have arguments made about them.
;
;Controversial fans
* Phoebe,DrewLinky/Hussie emails creator of I'm Good, I'm Gone.
* Makin, founder of the Homestuck subreddit and Discord.
* GiovanH, blogger who has extensively written about What Pumpkin and the Hiveswap Kickstarter controversy.Tweets about Gio: 
* Kate Mitchell, Vriska-liker and associate of Andrew Hussie.
===2016 MSPA Forums outage===
In late March 2016, the MSPA Forums went down with no notice to the community (including the moderators). It is still down. See here for what people know so far.
It was later confirmed the data was unrecoverable.
== Further reading ==
* (Archived version) by Lilian Min (February 2015)
* (March 2016)
* The wildest shit that happened in homestuck’s fanbase (March 2016)
* by Ben Tolkin (October 2016)
* by Jakey Potter (May 2017) 
* homestuck fandom, a brief history (June 2017)
* by Gita Jackson (September 2017)
* (October 2018)
* Kate Mitchell (October 2018)
* by Mara Katz (October 2019)
* by RubrumLancer (October 2019)
* , a firsthand account from a moderator of the /r/homestuck Discord. (2017-2020)
* The Hiveswap Fiasco (October 2020), More on the Hiveswap Odd Gentlemen Debacle (January 2021), and The Sarah Z Video Fallout (June 2021) by GiovanH
* by Sarah Z (April 2021)
* by jan Misali (January 2022)
== References ==
Category:Homestuck
Category:Social Media Feature