Homestuck was a long-running webcomic, published from 2009 to 2016, that began as a story about a kid named John who got a mysterious new game called Sburb, and over time, turned into a sprawling epic about adolescence. Today, with no warning or preamble, the official Homestuck twitter account tweeted out the website for its apparent sequel, Homestuck^2. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of them.
Homestuck^2 will update once a month, as stated on the official website. Interestingly, this project is also a collaboration between Homestuck author Andrew Hussie and the fandom. “Many writers will be involved, and collectively they will be allowed significant latitude in shaping the direction of the story and the way it’s told,” reads the FAQ page for the series. “It’s a legitimate continuation of the series, and simultaneously a departure from conventional ideas when it comes to what we think of as canon, or any authoritative expansion on a work of fiction.” The FAQ explains that while Hussie provided the outline for the story he also told his collaborators to allow for influence from the Homestuck fandom as the story proceeds, which is fitting for a story that ended up being defined by its fandom for many of its readers, and non-readers.
The comic pages that are out so far are mostly centered around the character Dirk, whose relationship to one of the main characters of Homestuck is too complicated to explain in a single sentence, and also features Terezi, one of the gray-skinned alien trolls who would become the series’ calling card. It follows directly on the heels of the original series’ epilogues, with Dirk in a spaceship heading for parts unknown. I’m sure this will be a straightforward narrative, with absolutely no self referential or metatextual elements at play whatsoever.