What Was Your First Upd8, and How Do You Feel Your Point of Entry Has Influenced Your View on the Comic?

[Leo]

I've seen the idea floating around over the years that archival readers of Homestuck (the webcomic and now the epilogues/^2) tend to have different feelings on characters/events than people who experienced it through upd8s. The logic is that readers with more canon material to consider before making their opinions may be inclined to different narrative conclusions than those who had time to speculate and become attached to ideas while experiencing the story play out live.

Examples of statements I've seen tossed around Tumblr/Twitter/Reddit/Discord:
1. People who joined after the retcon are more likely to view its effects positively than those who watched it play out live.
2. People who joined late-comic but pre-epilogues are usually not as happy with the epilogues as those who have followed HS from near the start.
3. DirkJake is viewed more favorably by upd8 readers than those who began reading after they broke up.

This is a lot of conjecture, ofc, and there's not much evidence for it one way or the other. And even if it were true, it'd be subject to individual differences. But I find the idea interesting enough to talk about.

So what was your first upd8? How do you feel about all the upd8s since then? Do you feels there's a general consensus among your friends about how good/bad other plot events or characters (Vriska, Dirk, etc.) are, and do you think you'd feel differently if you'd joined in at another time?

[RoyalFiddle]

My first true Upd8 was [S] Game Over, after catching up to said point a few days prior. Nothing will ever be okay again, but I think that Flash really cemented Homestuck to me as something that didn't pull it's punches... of course it immediately pulled that punch but whatevs

[MatthewHMay]

I joined during the wait for act 7 due to a friend constantly bugging me and spoiling stuff to get me into HS (that may have also changed how I viewed the comic), but I'm pretty positive on nearly all baseline HS besides how John and others who were wronged by Bec Noir never got revenge; However I'm not a big fan of the Epilogues. Despite that I very much loved Friendsim, Pesterquest, and am looking forward to HS^2

[Darth_Energon]

I caught up right before the Gigapause(?), whatever the one before Game Over was. That gave me a lot of time to stew on how I was unhappy with how the comic was turning out.

[Generalrabogolfo]

None. I finished the comic this april.

[egg]

My first upd8 was Cascade, but I wasn't caught up with the comic at the time it came out.
Because I joined pre-retcon, I harbored and still kind of harbor a big grudge towards it. I always viewed its effects as a poor decision, which doubtlessly were intentional. But, oddly enough, I didn't have the time to warm up to the trolls that much, so I actually ended up liking Act 6 a lot (pre-retcon, at least).
And I liked the epilogues, yeah.

[...]do you think you'd feel differently if you'd joined in at another time?

Probably, yes, because the Omegapause trimmed a lot of the fat of the fanbase, so to speak, and caused me to not think about the comic for a long time. Archival readers gget through it all in one go.

[Sahxyel]

So what was your first upd8? How do you feel about all the upd8s since then? Do you feels there's a general consensus among your friends about how good/bad other plot events or characters (Vriska, Dirk, etc.) are, and do you think you'd feel differently if you'd joined in at another time?

1: First upd8 was the one after Vriskagram, I hopped on the train EXTRA late but before the Homestuck train pulled into the Act 7 station.

2: I didn't like it! Post-retcon everything felt like John opened an entirely different save file and the results were a mass of characters who didn't really act like anything I grew attached to or cared about, to the point where I actually recommended a friend to stop reading at Cascade for a 'good' ending and at 'Game Over' for a bad ending.

3: Yes. The rage when me and my friends finished watching Act 7 was L E G E N D A R Y.

4: If I joined earlier I would have hated it even more with the Sunk Cost Fallacy like my friend who had been reading since 2010 (and was the one to get me to read it in the first place). If I read it after the Epilogues, I'd still hate it I think, because it's still mostly an archival experience like I had before and a lot of my grief with the characters presentations, relationships, and resolution of the story itself doesn't change since these fundamental problems still make the shitty structure of the Post-GO story.

4a: Reading Problem Sleuth which had a defined ending, a satisfying wrap up to long build ups where the whole puzzle came together, and ended with the main characters finally free and together was 100% a better experience and made me even angrier with Homestuck. If I didn't read that I would have dropped Homestuck already, but because it exists and was incredibly great I keep hoping it all comes together even when I'm fairly pessimistic that it won't.

[nonsenseMnemonic]

I caught up to Homestuck after Act 6 had ended and was around to see the illustrations leading up to Act 7 (and Act 7 itself). Rereading the comic has changed my impression a bit, but I don't think anything has influenced it as much as now that new content has been released -- now that I am following the fandom, the content, and its creators, I feel like I'm "in" on a lot of jokes and references that I know I've missed in the original. I'm glad to be here for it.

Every Homestuck community I've checked out has had a different consensus on the good and bad characters and events, some of them influenced by when they saw the updates, all of them feeding into each other. I've tried to distance myself from too much of those agreements because they can sour my view of the comic and I'm here to have a good time.

I'm pretty glad that I wasn't into Homestuck for most of its run, because I probably wouldn't have been able to keep up after the hiatuses, and if I had kept up, I for sure would've been eaten alive by the discourse. My internet argument self-control has gotten a lot better since then and I still sometimes struggle with the new stuff.

[calamityCons]

My very first Update that I experienced was all the way back in 2009, with [S] Rose: Fast forward to now. Up until then I had this kickass headcanon that Rose was actually an Artificial Human and that maybe Roxy's alcoholism was because of that, and as the story progressed I remember getting blown away by all the COOL SHIT that happened as it went forward. When the Trolls showed up I was mad, because these characters were really caustic and mean and I didn't want to read what they had to say, so if they were trolling a Kid I would skip it because I didn't care about them. Then Hivebent happened and I got really grumpy, so I dropped the comic for a bit until Act 5 Act 2.

I genuinely believe that Cascade is the peak of Homestuck's narrative, and that if I were to recommend it to anyone, I'd suggest they end at Cascade. It wraps up everything, has a hopeful tone to it, and in the interim before Act 6 began I felt that it could be a good place to end the story entirely. Now that both of the universes that the story was taking place in were destroyed, there were no more ways to actually see what was going on with the characters. The story could have been like an epistolary, a collection of all the pieces of the story put together into a proper narrative, and the end of their story is this cautiously optimistic one of everyone escaping the game entirely and starting anew, somewhere away from our grasp.

Of course there still would have been a LOT of unsolved mysteries and untied plotlines. But it would've been better than Act 7, in my opinion.

[Dream Muttman]

My first upd8 was Equius: Seek the highb100d. The highlights of the story, for me, were a trio: The whole Seer: Descend "arc", Doc Scratch revealing that the trolls had already scratched once before and finally Cascade.

I enjoyed bits and pieces of Act 6, mostly Caliborn's intermissions. I don't think anything to come out of Homestuck since can really measure up to Cascade, and that's a real shame since it's so defining.

[airborneCalamity]

I started reading the comic almost one year before the Epilogues dropped, so I lived it pretty intensely
Actually, it was so confusing that I basically haven't understood most of that stuff that happened, so I have to admit that maybe that's the reason that led me to not dislike the Epilogues and actually enjoy them much more than most of the other Homestucks I know
I didn't have a lot of time to really take in the personalities of the characters and to grow as fond of them compared to most of the people that read the comic sooner, so I could appreciate the unexpected and sometimes very painful twist that the Epilogues brought as the exploration of the story in its worst sides that it was meant to be
All the meta, the implications of all the actions and the meaning it has for the fandom as a whole? Absolutely fascinating, I really can't wait to see where we're going next

[bathtimebird]

My first update was probably the second Beatdown flash, or maybe it was the page where you gained control of Peregrine Mendicant. I was an Act 3 boy.

Act 4 blew me away. Act 5 really tried my patience but it had some of that Act 4 goodness in it, and the wait for Cascade made it all worth it. Act 6 had promise but it suffered the same trappings as Act 5, and it never recovered. Not even Collide could fix it.

My view on the comic is that it used to be good, it had potential, and that potential was squandered. I miss old Homestuck.

[frogmoss10]

Homestuck^2 came out literally the day I finished with the comic, so I was already kind of burnt out from the latter.

Despite that, I think this led to me staying with everything since it's obvious there's new stuff on the way, rather joining during the massive period of radio silence regarding Hiveswap Act 2. I'm thankful for that.

(All this coming from someone who isn't terribly interested in the Friendsim/Pesterquest.)

[Cheshire_Creeper]

I only joined this crazy ride during Kate's Epilogues Stream,
So my first Update was actually Homestuck^2's release!
I'm waiting for the next one with bated breath, not just because I'm trying to become the Next Jon Bois off the back of Homestuck^2.

[Ravenson]

I caught up a day or two after WV's dream was posted, so I got the wait for [S] Wake. It probably cemented my opinion of Act 5 Act 2 as the Homestuck Golden Age; I was in time for the last of the early shenanigans and just a bit too soon for the shift in tone and focus that Act 6 had to acclimate it as easily as others did.

[Flame_Warp]

I finally powered through Homestuck pretty much right after it ended, as I recall. I saw some stuff about the Undertale references, remembered that time that I tried to read it before (I got somewhere into act 4 I think? The panel I ended on was one of Dave's house all built up, with underlings flying around it. That was probably...2014, I think. I just kind of fell off of my attempts at catching up and needed to start over to remember what the fuck was happening once I got into it again), so depending on how you look at it my first upd8 was probably Hiveswap. I forget if I was around when the snaps were releasing. I definitely think coming in like that gave me an appreciation for things like act 6 or the retcon that some others might not have.

[cygnus413]

My first upd8 was the release of Hiveswap. I really loved the retcon and thought it made sense - which I now realize is because while reading I paid attention to the '??????' links, and wasn't surprised when the narrative revisited those moments. It felt like the culmination of all those other times we followed both paths in a timeline. In hindsight, if I'd read HS before Game Over, I probably wouldn't like the retcon nearly as much as I do now.

I liked the epilogues but I don't want to ever read them again, lmao. This is a point of view I hadn't actually noticed - usually I see whether someone liked the epilogues or not as something that corresponds more to their age, so maybe that would be why later readers tend to dislike them more?

DirkJake... sigh. I was happy to see them together during the credits, but overall I don't have much of an opinion on them.

[Roxy]

My first true Upd8 was {S} Game Over, after catching up to said point a few days prior. Nothing will ever be okay again, but I think that Flash really cemented Homestuck to me as something that didn't pull it's punches... of course it immediately pulled that punch but whatevs

Damn, almost the exact same here, I had caught up sometime like, late 2013, so my first update I was caught up for was Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 right after the whole gigapause. I think I had started reading that summer so I'd like to say I joined pre retcon, at least, pre any effects for sure. But yeah my first string of updates being game over really sealed the idea in my head that the comic was cool as shit, along with the whole community.
I definitely didn't like exactly how he did the retcon or how some of its effects happened but I DEFINITELY think it's more realistic than how a lot of writers just let the good guys win situations they shouldn't so as much as i didn't like some of it, I think it was the best way to do what needed to be done.
Epilogues wise, seeing as i joined about mid comic i guess I fit the bill of actually liking them quite a bit. Meat anyway since its the canon timeline and the only one i read. Really brought back that Game Over vibe. but this time John DOES die.
also thats never been favorable to me but only cause i literally hate jake's character, don't think it has anything to do with starting relative to the breakup

overall i thinkg, like Fiddle, joining around then definitely set homestuck as a "no perfect ending" story and it kept that all the way through and I think that's pretty dope. However, I think in joining so late into its lifecycle i had never gotten the idea of it being influenced by the readers so i was content with whatever hussie put out, as opposed to what a lot of early readers got upset by where he focused too much on plot and not enough on characters.

sorry that whole post was a ramble oops, I should try to keep my posts shorter

[nuclear333]

my experience with homsestuck is a strange one... i first started reading with the Voxus Let's Read (shoutouts to paul) and kept up to date with that in 2014 until cascade, where there was a haitus, and then it went a teeny bit into act 6. now heres the problem. eventually, there the gigapause unpaused, and the gap between where the let's read was at and the upd8 was several thousand pages. nonetheless, i bit the bullet and dove into the upd8 unprepared. i was delightfully confused by whoever the fuck this "caliborn" guy was and promptly got my shit kicked in with game over, where i genuinely thought all these characters were dying for real and would not come back.

clearly my journey is the intended and ideal one.

as for the epilogues, i deeply despise them. i havent entirely read them myself, but the bits and pieces i have make me feel as though these characters are entirely different from the ones i spent 5/6 years of my life getting to know and care about. i am very bitter about the current state of the homestuck brand, but i have faith in hiveswap and very much plan on getting around the friendsims i missed out on.

and honestly i dont really care about dirkjake because i dont care much. about boys. like if theyre a package good for them but honestly i didnt pay too much attention to their whole thing

[seerofheart]

My first update was Homosuck, which was the end of the Megapause. I think it was called the Megapause? Well whatever. 2013.

I liked Vriska during the comic's run. The fan takes on Vriska really suck imo, so I always grow to dislike her until I read her again and I'm like "wait Vriska rules."

I thought the Retcon was exciting at the time? John using his powers to go back and change various moments in the story was awesome. I really dig "For Want Of A Nail" plots so I liked it. Also it brought my OTP (Roxygen) closer together so hell yeah. I didn't really like how it brought together Davekat without much build up. The fact that people were loudly calling Davekat a crack pairing RIGHT BEFORE they became an endgame ship was...a bad sign, to me. I love Davekat after the Epilogues but it always felt weird to me in comic. Other than that, I did and still find the retcon to be fascinating.

I love the epilogues. I feel it's a very raw, cathartic exploration of adulthood, especially when you're lgbt. Your childhood friends will likely die, depression is real, and you dont get an epic coming of age story and then your life totally works out. I was 28 when the epilogues came out, though, and im pretty sure it's a lot more hard hitting the older you are.

I also was never a huge fan of Homestuck until AFTER the Epilogues. It was only after the Epilogues that Homestuck really all came together in my head and exploded. I was also never a teen reading Homestuck. So I feel like there are other aspects of epilogue hate than when you first started reading - I wasnt attached to these characters until they were adults like me, dealing with issues i dealt with.

And I love DirkJake.