homestuckdailyweekly

[homestuckdailyweekly]

Homestuck Daily - Week 2 - 4/27/2024

Last week was a real fucking mess. I wrote it a day late and I barely talked about the contents of the comic or my thoughts of it. I swore to myself that this week, I would get my head in the game. I would take notes on each day of comics, I'd pick out highlights I could talk about for the next update. I'd really do my best to give thoughtful insight into this comic. And then, as if Homestuck itself was mocking me from 15 years in the past, this was the slowest week of homestuck yet. 12 pages from 4/22/2024 to as I'm typing this. We'll get to those pages in a second, but first a bit of housekeeping.

I have previously mentioned I've scheduled out about which pages I would be reading which days, for up to about the first year of this project's runtime. This was a terrible idea, and I've deleted the calendar and replaced it with a daily reminder to check the Unofficial Homestuck Collection for updates. I would like to say this was to maintain verisimilitude for this project, but that would be at least partially a lie. The truth is that as this project began, I quickly learned the original schedule I wrote out was rather inaccurate, usually missing the last few updates of the day due to what I assume is a time zone difference. Fixing that schedule, or creating a new one from scratch, would be way too much effort, so I decided to throw away the gift and curse of knowledge. I plunge into the future of this project without a map or checklist.

Now, for a map or checklist of what happened this week in Homestuck. There was of course, Shenanigans, which I think I might create a separate section to discuss Shenanigans. A Plot-Recap and a Shenanigans Recap. But that discussion belongs in housekeeping, and this is the recap... as much of a recap that's possible with 12 pages. This week, John breaks the premise of this comic by exiting his house in search of the SBURB Beta. We get an iconic title-drop for the Comic with a short flash of John contemplating his 13th birthday and the feeling of something missing. He sees a mysterious green package and a piece of paper in his dad's car, but otherwise the beta is nowhere to be seen. He heads back inside, and spies a red package and a piece of paper with SBURB's Logo in the kitchen. John finally decides to enter the kitchen in order to confront his cake-wielding father, and we get our dramatic introduction to Dad. As of writing this, the week of updates ends with the calm before the storm of John facing his ferocious father in a fight.

As for shenanigans... uhhhh John watches an Ecto-Cooler commercial after really fucking up a card trick. Also he resists the urge to poop in his mailbox. This week is light on content on all fronts, I guess.

Before I go, I'd like to talk for a little bit about page 82 of Homestuck, the 2nd [S] of the comic that ends with a title card for the comic itself. I remember this page grabbing my attention when I first read this comic years ago. I'm not sure how quickly that past-me got to that page, but I remember thinking "Ah, the comic starts now." I think I assumed it must have released rather soon after the comic's start, but as the present-me reads this comic in real time, I realize it was released about 11 days after Homestuck began. That's a small percentage of the entire comic, certainly, but for me, I am realizing that a moment that I've considered the Beginning of Homestuck took nearly 2 weeks to get to. Not for the first time, I am hit with the monumental scale of the project ahead of me. A project I am doing for nobody but myself. I think about why I've decided to re-read Homestuck, and why I am documenting my re-read here. I think about the kind of person I was 7 years ago, and the kind of person I might be 7 years from now. I think about how many ways my life may change before I finish this. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, 'I realize today is going to be a long day.'

#homestuck #homestuck daily weekly

[homestuckdailyweekly]

Homestuck Daily - Week 1- 4/21/2024

I'm back, theoretical fuckers. I said I would probably give up in a week, and then a week later, there's no update. But jokes on you, person I made up to clown on, I didn't give up! I was busy traveling this weekend, so didn't have time to write a blog until right now. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you about my trip. I'm planning on getting off-topic in these blogs, but a short trip is about as antithetical to being Stuck at Home that I could possibly get.

Now, with that out of the way, the first week of Homestuck. Or I guess, more accurately, the 2nd-8th days of Homestuck, written on the 9th day of Homestuck. Past-me really fucked me by writing an actual update on 4/13 instead of just the intro, and I really should figure out a consistent structure to these blog updates, but that feels more like a future-me problem. And if she gets upset, well, she's the one who procrastinated on it to begin with, so won't she feel silly. Wow, the third paragraph and I still haven't talked about the actual contents of the comic. Lets change that! I'll include what I read today too, so up to page 77 of Homestuck. Just to get it out of the way, while thinking about this first week of Homestuck, I came to the conclusion that I don't think I would have kept up with the comic if I had been a true day-1 reader. That is not to say I don't enjoy this first week of comics. However, my initial read-through of Homestuck was an extreme binge where I just kept reading until I physically could not anymore. I did not have to wait a day to get what was coming next. And this hypothetical "Day 1 Reader" version of myself would not have the enjoyment of future story beats and fondness of the characters to stay engaged and up-to-dates with early Homestuck. With personal reflections over and done with, I guess I should give a quick overview of what's happened in the first week of Homestuck?

We are introduced to the first of John's friends, TG, who is messaging John asking if he has the Beta yet. Shenanigans Occur, including Sylladex-Fuckery, clever-Disguise Making, Harlequin-hating, Grandma-Urn-Toppling, Grandma-Urn-Fixing, the usual. We then meet John's second friend, TT. Then some more shenanigans, and then entering Dad's study, ending with a haunting piano refrain that is both our first [s] page and our first piece of music.

Here's a little more self-reflection, coming up with summaries is hard. And it's only going to get harder with time. Anyways, for future reference, I think I will try my best to keep plot summaries free of the curse of knowledge. And hopefully future updates will have less me making up what these updates look like as we go along.

Alright, so I said I won't talk about my trip, but the thing to know about me is that I'm a liar and a cheat, so I'm going to talk about the trip a little bit. I'm not going to dox myself by saying where I went or where I'm from, but I will say that of the 4 kids in Homestuck, I live closest to the Lalonde residence. When I realized I could pass by the theoretical location of the Lalonde residence via a very scenic route I thought "Oh that'd be fun, but I probably shouldn't base my travel plans on a whim." Then I thought I would be introduced to Rose the day I was driving, and I realized I couldn't possibly ignore that sign. (I later learned that I was, in fact, supposed to be introduced to her the night prior. my schedule has increasingly became a disappointment in terms of accurate end-points for each day of comics). So, I plotted my day's travel to take me past the real-life equivalent of the Lalonde House's coordinates, but sadly in real life it is the site of a water power plant and I was unable to stop close enough to get a picture. I also ended up in hotel room number 314 that night, and according to a friend, "backward Homestuck numbers are still Homestuck numbers".

In very silly news, I'm working on finding a good chumhandle/Title to go along with my initials EV. Since this week was our introduction to pesterchum and 3 different chumhandles, this updates seems the best time to mention it. I think I've settled on Erstwhile for the E, but the V is being tricky. I initially went with Viewer, but it seems too plain. ErstwhileVoyeur, while sounding more interesting, also has connotations I don't necessarily want. Perhaps ErstwhileVoyage, to convey this entire experiment in the metaphor of a journey. I'll think on it some more. Until next week, when I'll hopefully spend more than a tenth of the blog talking about the actual comic, -EV

#homestuck #homestuck daily weekly

[homestuckdailyweekly]

Homestuck Daily - Week 0 - 4/13/2024

A young woman sits in her bedroom. Today is not her birthday, but it is a very special day. She was born nearly 26 years ago, and named about 8 years ago.

Her name is Emma, and today she is beginning a VERY DUMB IDEA that has the potential of wrapping back around to being VERY COOL and FUNNY, however unlikely that may be. She has many INTERESTS, but the only one that matters is her love of a FLAWED AND BELOVED WEB COMIC. She also likes to play GAMES sometimes.

If I was planning this out better, I would have included all that in the Introduction post. Oh well, it's too late now. welcome to the first day of my Homestuck Daily reread of the webcomic Homestuck. There's only 7 pages today, the introduction and naming of John Egbert up to the retrieval of his fake arms from his MAGIC CHEST. This last page does show the first time we see a Captchalogue in use, so that's cool. Actually, while I got you here, let me share a very dumb thing. You see, I scheduled out which pages I'd read each day months ago, up to about the first year of my reading. It was partially because I had nothing better to do, partially to give myself some idea of the undertaking I had thought up. I used the dates in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection's Log page to decide which pages I'd end each day with. However, what I didn't realize is that each individual page dated itself based on Eastern Daylight Time, while the Log page used some other timezone as reference. In other words, I have to choose between the ease of simply using the Unofficial Homestuck Collection Log page to determine dates, or redoing my year-long scheduling in order to be more accurate to my timezone . (Riveting stuff, I know, just wait until I have to decide what the fuck to do for a leapday's update.)

-eV

#Homestuck Daily Weekly #homestuck

[homestuckdailyweekly]

Homestuck Daily Intro - Happy 4/13

So, I have a very very bad idea. You see, there's this web comic, called Homestuck. I never engaged with Homestuck when it was originally being made, I only read it years after the fact at the insistence of one of my exes. And, regrettably, I loved it. I tore through the entirety of Homestuck in an insomnia-fueled week long binge in February of 2020. It was, possibly, the 2nd worst way to consume Homestuck.

The worst possible way of consuming Homestuck, I think, is what I'm planning on doing for the next (7? 8? I can't do math) years: Homestuck Daily. Each day, I read whatever pages of Hhomestuck were published 15 years ago. I have scheduled out the first year of this project so I know when to stop reading each day. No matter how much I want to keep reading, I will follow along the comic as if I was a fan following along from the very beginning. What do I hope to gain from this? Absolutely nothing, I am doing this on a whim and there's a good chance I give up in a week. But, there's also a chance I keep up with it all the way to the very end. This project has the potential to be the longest-lasting aspect of my entire adult life. Which brings me to this blog. I want to document my own journey, and despite having never used it before, I am choosing tumblr to shout that documentation out into the void. Despite evidence to the contrary, I do live a somewhat busy life, so I can't promise updates every day, but I'll be aiming for once a week. Then again, I suspect nobody but me will ever read this. If I am wrong and somebody has chosen to read a random stranger read Homestuck as if it was being released live, I have one thing to say: Surely there's a better use of your time.

For some simple book keeping in this First Post, a few facts about how I will be beginning this terrible journey: I will be reading through the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. I will be using the TUHC Time Machine mod to keep myself honest and have to wait for new pages to unlock. Although they'll be anachronistic, I will also be using The Homestuck Commentaries Mod because I've never read them before.

Also, fun fact, apparently there's a mod that lets you play DOOM through the Homestuck Unofficial Collection.

-eV

#Homestuck #I've never used tumblr before am I doing this right? #Homestuck Daily Weekly