Homestuck (7)

 I'm surprised it wasn't on the reading list. I know it's still vaguely niche, but I thought it would've been talked about enough to make it on the list.

It's so much to read, and I haven't read it in such a long time, so I read up to the 2nd act before stopping. I've read it all before when it was still coming out, but it's such a garbled mess that I don't remember half of it.

Is it convoluted and hard to comprehend? Yes. Is it stupidly long? Absolutely. Is it smart? It is. It was so influential to comic culture as we know it, that it has to have some recognition. I don't think there's been a fandom as big as there has been for Homestuck since the height of it's popularity. Everyone somehow got a piece of this pie and had a wild time with it. It's so expansive that if you read it, it's like you have a secret badge of honor you can subtly mention to other people you think have also read it and just understand that person at a much deeper level.

Most of the people I'm friends with here have read it and we all casually make jokes about it all the time. It's as if we all have the same shared experience of playing on the playground when we younger. It's a crazy phenomenon.

I can't even begin to talk about what it's about but every time I had to mention it to someone I said, "It's about four kids who try to play a game and end up destroying their world and making a mess." That's the abridged version. Kind of like Scott Pilgrim where the game is just incorporated into real life. The kids try to play a game and end up talking to aliens and the aliens are all the signs of the zodiac and they got their own BS going on but then the humans met them, a lot of characters die (even multiple times), they try to kill the one who's making the universes they live in, the author shoves himself in there a couple times, everyone gets relatives for some reason, and then more people die and others get into relationships. That's the end. 

I love the fact that flash games were a crucial part to this experience. There were a lot of animated sequences and love put into this comic. It really felt like a game a some points. I think that's what kept me interested, is that you would have some parts that were a comic, most were logs of text you would read between characters or monologues, there would be animated videos you had to watch, then actual parts that were flash games in which you could interact and walk around talking to characters. It was an incredible labor of love, despite how contrived it was. I can only honor that and the fact that the creator is now set for life.