Ahh... Homestuck. Truly a classic of the 2000s/2010s. I didn't read it in the 2000s/2010s, because I was born in the 2000s, and the target audience for Homestuck was teenagers, not toddlers. I did however pick it up in the 2020s, because I'm always fashionably late. And I really enjoyed it! It's a great webcomic that truly uses it's format AS a webcomic to do something. The song you're listening to right now is from it's original soundtrack! What's the last webcomic you saw that had one of those? It also has tons of flash animations and games which you can't view on the official website because flash was taken down :(. I recommend using the unoffical collection so you can access the games properly. But be warned. Homestuck's a product of it's time, so there's slurs (mostly abelist) :(. Install this to fix it. This isn't an endorsement of slurs. I'm autistic myself so it's upsetting to me that such a great story is bogged down by this rubbish :(. Disclamers out of the way, let's proceed.

Pen, why is this anything?

What I mean by this question is, why have I been hyperfocusing on this webcomic from 2006 that everybody generally agrees is cognitohazardous. I'm not fully even sure at this point. I think one part of it is the fact that the characters have a degree of relateablility higher than most. In Homestuck, the characters are just online friends, who've never met. I kinda feel like this. Most of my friends are at other schools now, and I really can't contact anyone I like except through the internet. But in Homestuck, they just get to go on an adventure together, and sure that adventure is like, horribly scarring, but, that's life. It also gets progressively more queer as time goes on, which is very zased. Of course, you can't forget the soundtrack. 9 out of 10 Homestuck scientists say the soundtrack goes hard. But I just. I don't know what makes this world so compelling to me. Well, I know it, but I can't put it into words. I feel like the characterization is on point. The typing quirks, of course, are a big part of that. Each character's obviously going to feel unique if they talk uniquely, that's a given. Each character has a personality that's either simple yet fun, or multifaceted in a deeply confusing way. These fuckers are deeply iconic. You will not be able to remove these fuckers from your brain. Once they're there they ain't getting out unless you have a memory wiping device. I could be on my dementia ridden deathbed and still recognize homestuck characters. They get in your brain and won't leave. According to an online friend, "never read homestuck as a neurodivergent you will develop a hyperfixation". I can confirm this. I love this shitpost of a webcomic so much.

In the book "The King in Yellow", characters become deeply insane and fundamentally changed on a base level after reading the in universe play under the same name. I believe that Homestuck is the closest thing we have to this in real life. Deeply cursed media, don't read it but also you need to read it.