This time last year, I read Homestuck for the first time. It hasn't felt like a year, I'll tell you that much! To celebrate this and the comic's sweet 16th, I'm gonna reflect on a year in the fandom.

I first came across the comic in summer of 2023, when a Pesterquest end card was posted to R/traaaaaaaans2:

In the comments, someone linked to The Homestuck Unofficial Collection, which I saved in my many tabs to be looked at later… Fast forward to April 2024 and I get recommended a video on Psycholonials, which says that it was made by the author of Homestuck, “Andrew Hussie Jr”. I connect the two knowledge dots and download the unofficial collection onto my shitbox PC (one of its last and most important act of significance before it’s suicide).

On the 13th of April 2024 (which turned out to be the comic’s 15th birthday), I began my first complete readthrough. It took me 7 days to read, due to me only reading it for that entire period (outside of eating and sleeping).

I enjoyed my readthrough quite a bit, even the more contentious parts. It helps that I was both reading in archive and unspoiled, meaning I had no expectations for the comic. The plot was complex, but I didn’t have much of a problem comprehending it, even if some of the finer points required clarification; the comic’s cast was a tad bloated, but I enjoyed enough of the characters to not be too bothered by it; and the Music and Animation was fucking stellar.

I then immediately read the epilogues, which are even more divisive than some of later Homestuck. I personally enjoyed it, but I enjoy that sort of meta commentary navelgazing shit, so of course I would.

After that, nothing much changed for me, save now knowing Betty Crocker is a thing that exists (I’m a Brit, we don’t have The Batterwitch here). Then I began to peruse the subreddit (not post though, I ain’t a redditor). And then I began to watch videos about Homestuck. I read Jailbreak and Bard Quest. I read HS:BC. By summer, I had become a fan.

But there was a line I hadn’t crossed. Fanfiction. I knew of their existence, but hadn’t read one. A younger, more prickish me had internalised that fanfic was “cringe”. I would like to take this moment to state that anyone who cares about “cringe” should fucking grow up, but you already know that. I was however curious, and more than that, hungry for more Homestuck.

So I sat down and read some fics that someone on reddit had recommended, and fucking devoured them; I could not get enough. I read so much fanfic that summer, to the point where I was downloading fics to my phone to read offline. That golden period was something I hadn’t experienced before, not even in my time as a Sonic fan. It felt like there was no limit to what could be done both within Homestuck itself, and its wider universe.

When Fall came around, I began to write lil experiments to see what I could come up with. One idea I had was for a SBURB session that mirrored Homestuck’s, but set in the UK, and starring adults. I wanted to use this to reexamine the comic’s elements, and to see what a narrative without lord english and his BS would be like.

Another idea I had was for a more typical Vollege AU, set in late 2014. I wanted to make something slice of life, with June Egbert as the main character. The project was put on hold however, due to it not having a hook to differentiate it from other college fics.

Shortly after the College AU was paused, the 2024 US election happened. This reminded me that I had created a Bluesky account on the 23 of April (3 days after my Homestuck readthrough). Logging back on for the first time since May, I discovered that around October a group of Homestuck fans had migrated and formed “Homestuck Bluesky” (also known as “Blueskaia” or “HSBS”). They welcomed me in with open arms, and I became a regular user of Bluesky as a result.

As December drew to a close, I wrote some lil bits of a Saw X Homestuck Crossover fic. I uploaded them to Bluesky, and based on their positive reception, made an AO3 account to upload them on. It was around this time that I revisited the College AU, and decided to turn them into a crime drama, loosely based on Shallow Grave (good film btw). Thus on the 9th of January 2025, Cross The Breeze began. It’s been on a break or two, but sits at 7 Chapters (not including the front page) and ~13K words as of 4/13.

Around this time, I created a Trollsona (a fan made Troll meant to represent me). This was around the time I got back into drawing. Quints is a character I might make use of later, if appropriate.

Which brings us up to today. One year of Homestuck. I’ve changed in ways I didn’t expect, like gaining a pronoun and realising my Asexuality. But the thing I didn’t expect most was Homestuck to become so entangled in my life. I’ve now read every work related to Homestuck, save Hiveswap, Friendsim, Pesterquest, and Psycholonials (due to them being games/visual novels). I’ve got a Problem Sleuth poster and a Karkat plush. I’ve become a part of the fandom (an albeit small part).

Looking back, it feels like the franchise was made specifically for my odd taste in media. And that the arch of time was bending towards me being a Homestuck. Whatever the next 365.25 days bring, I know I’ll be stuck here, with all y’all!

—QuantumBreakFan