A Homestuck reread 1: In which our hero successfully exits his home, ironically

Homestuck title page, screenshot

Wait, 1982 pages before we get to the opening? Well, not quite that many, there's a number of numbers missing in between 000001 and 001982. But it does feel like we've followed our hero John through a near-epic struggle of indecipherable and counter-productive inventory systems, cryptic IM conversations, the looming threat of Dad and a small disaster involving Nanna's cremated ashes in his quest for the mythical "Sburb beta", before making it out the front door and into this heavily ominous vista of a lifeless suburban neighborhood, laden with portent and the sounds of whistling winds and distant little bells.

Funny story, I took a walk in the rain late last night, down the fields by the river where you can walk for hours without seeing another person. (All I saw in 30 minutes was a cat, from far away.) I like this town. But anyway, at exactly 0:04, I heard bells from far away. Seemingly from the direction of this several hundred years old church a little further from town, where my grandfather lies buried.

I have no idea what that was about.

So anyway, what we get so far is that this is a world with several videogame elements already in it, that John is a goofy earnest kid who loves movies and pranking and has an apparently ordinary for a teenager apprehension towards spending time with his parents. And he's not worried about how he's just accidentally locked in his Strife Specibus in Hammerkind strata. It's probably less harsh than in Scott Pilgrim, where Scott can't even own a skateboard because he thought it would be cool to pick Longsword proficiency instead.

I can't wait to get this action-packed, science-fantasy, young-adult-ensemble horror-comedy-drama-tragedy-mystery-metafiction-romance-coming of age superdimensional rescue mission on the road, can you?