HOMESTUCK READING GUIDE

[u/harryhinderson]

New? Just want to read some damn Homestuck without 10 years of drama getting crammed down your gullet? Don’t worry, Homestuck is far from being lost media. Here's a quick guide.

BROWSER

Homestuck.com doesn't work. Hasn't worked in months. Its up now, but the images are broken. You can't use it.

There are two primary mirrors (copies) of the website:

https://mspa.chadthundercock.com/ is the recommended mirror. Notably it offers formats for both mobile and desktop devices, and a few other bonus features on its options page. If you want to read Homestuck on your phone, this is basically your only real option.

https://homestuck.kici.moe/ is another mirror. It has less features than chadthundercock. Most notably it lacks the bonus features and mobile formatting of chadthundercock. Several pages are also known to not work properly. Regardless, its a perfectly serviceable alternative.

While these offers an experience similar to reading on homestuck.com, reading Homestuck on browser isn't the preferred experience. Also its likely to get taken down eventually.

COLLECTION

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is the best way to view Homestuck and all of its related works, without a doubt. Good motherfucking news, you can get to downloading the client and the accompanying asset pack right now. You must download *both* of these for the application to work.

WINDOWS CLIENT DOWNLOAD

MAC CLIENT DOWNLOAD

LINUX/STEAMDECK FLATPAK PAGE

ASSET PACK DOWNLOAD

For the full list of client downloads, check out the UHC's github page.

You can find additional mirrors for the archive and the client on this blog.

The files is contained within a file type known as ".zip", as indicated by the folder icon having a zipper on it. This is unusable. On Mac, this will automatically unzip by attempting to open it. On windows, you must right click zip files and select the "extract all" option that should appear. These may be unzipped anywhere.

After unzipping the client, the application may be started by opening the folder that should appear and double clicking on the application with the MSPA logo.

After opening the client for the first time, it should automatically detect the unzipped asset pack. If it doesn't, you might have to do it manually.

If you're opening the client for the first time on windows, you may see this screen:

Don't worry, the UHC isn't a virus. Just click the "More info" button circled in green and then click the "Run anyway" button that should appear.

For those of you on Mac, you may need to change or override your security settings to open an unverified app, like the UHC client. Here is an apple support article on how to do so.

If you're still confused, here's a video installation tutorial.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or the official UHC support discord here.

[u/L----------]

https://homestuck.kici.moe/ has ruffle builtin, there's a toggle at the bottom right. no need to install an extension

[u/harryhinderson → u/L----------]

Oh ok

[u/Eruwye → u/L----------]

this site was working for me just fine up until last night, where it suddenly crashed whilst i was reading. says there's a "Bad Gateway". anyone else experiencing this?

[u/Sxixxor → u/Eruwye]

Just loaded it up today to get a bad gateway error from the host.

[u/MBcodes18 → u/Sxixxor]

Commenting so that if there's an answer I get a response

[u/ArchCaff_Redditor → u/L----------]

Only problem I’ve had is that Cascade just doesn’t work.

[u/harryhinderson → u/ArchCaff_Redditor]

Just checked and it doesn't work on my device either. I updated the guide to reflect that.

[u/OctoAmbush]

mods pin this

[u/Bodertz]

Thanks for writing this out.

[u/Bodertz]

Homestuck.kici.moe does actually have the other MSPA stories as well.

[u/harryhinderson → u/Bodertz]

thank you. idk why i thought otherwise. fixed.

[u/gramaticalError]

If you're on Mac you use the .dmg file, not the .yml.

[u/harryhinderson → u/gramaticalError]

Fixed

[u/Bodertz]

Oh, also the "official" asset pack isn't outdated. It's exactly the same, except for the removal of some non-functional files (think a README file, that sort of thing). All of the actual comic content of the "unofficial asset pack" is present in the "official asset pack".

[u/Makin- → u/Bodertz]

If what you say is true the "official" asset pack won't work with the latest versions of the collection, which check the integrity of the pack (people half-downloading the pack or deleting files and then complaining about it not working was the top #1 cause for bug reports).

[u/Bodertz → u/Makin-]

That's true, and people have run into that issue. But I'm fairly sure you can continue despite the validation checker failing. I've been telling people to ignore the error, at least. People on the Discord mentioned that issue back when the validator thing was added, and they didn't seem to have a problem running it with assets.zip despite that. But it's not ideal, to be sure. It would have been nice if the "official" asset pack hadn't removed those files without much reason to, and it would have been nice if the validator had been designed to handle the "official" asset pack back when that feature was added.

Edit: I've confirmed that you can just ignore the error if it complains about changelog.txt and SELECT THIS FOLDER IN THE APP being missing.

[u/Makin- → u/Bodertz]

An issue with telling people to just skip the errors as a policy is that they can just change the files again in the future (with real effects) and people won't notice, so I'd just direct people to other sources of the asset pack by default.

[u/Bodertz → u/Makin-]

I agree. The real solution would be to fix the validator to not check for the unnecessary files, though. Assuming the homestuck fork actually pulls in the changes Gio made since the end of last year, they'll have to fix the validator. If not, someone^TM could fork Gio's repo and fix the validator themselves. It doesn't look too difficult from looking at the code, but then I don't know how to get GitHub to build all the artifacts, assuming it is actually GitHub which is responsible for that.

In the meantime, though, I'm not telling people to ignore the validator as a rule, just to ignore errors about two specific files.

[u/harryhinderson → u/Bodertz]

I was under the impression that hussie’s unfinished wizard book wasn’t in it

[u/Bodertz → u/harryhinderson]

I'll check again shortly, but it's my understanding that the "unofficial" asset pack has never been updated or modified past V2, and that was intentional. That's why there can be a torrent of it; it's not updating all the time. On first run, I think the UHC may make patches to it, though, or maybe wizardy herbert is purely an imod and didn't write any files to the asset pack.

Edit:

Running rsync to check:

rsync -avn --checksum --no-times --no-perms --no-owner --no-group  Asset\ Pack\ V2/ Asset_Pack

sending incremental file list
SELECT THIS FOLDER IN THE APP
changelog.txt
readme.txt

sent 587,352 bytes  received 775 bytes  4,801.04 bytes/sec
total size is 4,620,893,348  speedup is 7,856.97 (DRY RUN)

What this means is that if you were to convert Asset_Pack (the "official" one) into Asset Pack V2 (the "unofficial" one), you'd need to add these three files:

• SELECT THIS FOLDER IN THE APP
• changelog.txt
• readme.txt

Nothing else has changed.

The validator only cares about the existence of SELECT THIS FOLDER IN THE APP and changelog.txt.

Wizardy Herbert is present even using the "official" asset pack.

[u/harryhinderson → u/Bodertz]

alright.

i wonder if i can fix the "official" asset pack and host it somewhere, just to make the process a tad smoother. someone is probably already hosting the "unofficial" asset pack on archive.org or something.

EDIT: OK, yeah I found the archive.org backup. Replaced the “official” version with the “unofficial” version hosted there.

[u/Bodertz → u/harryhinderson]

I imagine this whole mess is because they don't want other people hosting the asset pack. It looks like a very easy fix to get the validator to work, but that would involve someone having to update the collection and make a new release, and I think Gio's washed their hands of it, so someone else would have to fork their repo and do that.

Rather than hosting the entire asset pack, you could just host the two missing files, but then you'd need to tell users to manually copy them over afterwards. Or of course just tell them to use the "unofficial" asset pack.

But for reference, to get the validator to work I think you just need to remove the lines mentioning SELECT THIS FOLDER IN THE APP and changelog.txt from this file [1], then make a new release.

[1] https://github.com/GiovanH/unofficial-homestuck-collection/blob/main/src/js/crc_pack.json

[u/-LongEgg-]

continuing to be the goat

[u/harryhinderson → u/-LongEgg-]

It’s heartening to know that everyone else was so busy generating the most annoying discourse I’ve ever seen that after like 30 hours the unrelenting egbertlust guy had to make the guide on how to read the actual fucking comic

[u/Roborilo]

homestuck.github.io (the "official" homestuck page) is still up at the moment, so maybe it would be cool to put it in there as well? I know it is a little outdated but I'm tired of seeing people say that the UHC is not available anywhere outside of random download links scattered around the internet. Maybe putting it with a warning or something like that would help people to understand that it is not (fully) unavailable yet.

[u/harryhinderson → u/Roborilo]

The asset pack on there gives errors when used.

There’s no reason to link that page. I want this post to be streamlined to minimize confusion considering gestures at everything. The links on here are direct downloads to stuff that works and is fully up to date. I’m not gonna add broken stuff that would just be confusing.

[u/Roborilo → u/harryhinderson]

yeah, that makes sense.

[u/cverg0]

trying to get into homestuck because I've seen it everywhere, thanks!

[u/coffinborn]

I unzipped it and chose the file and I get this message "That doesnt look like the right folder. make sure unzipped the asset pack, and select the singular folder that contains everything else." what step did I miss(?)

[u/harryhinderson → u/coffinborn]

I uploaded the wrong thing LOL it should be fixed now just download the asset pack again

[u/coffinborn → u/harryhinderson]

sweet! ty^^

[u/DasyTaylor]

Much appreciated!! I haven't interacted much with this fandom recently so Idk about the drama but I have been thinking about rereading the story for nostalgia. Thank you for this thorough guide just in time of need, I didn't know where to look after the old website was gone.

[u/dangerousmarkets]

Thanks for this post!

[u/YoyleAeris]

Thank YOUUUUU for writing this.

[u/sfisher923]

I just bookmarked the "ChadThunder" mirror on my phone while it's not my main way of reading it's nice to have if I'm away from my PC and can't use the UHC

[u/xxfoofyxx → u/sfisher923]

cmon. say its full name. be respectful

[u/Many-Guest-5746]

PIN THIS ASAP

[u/U_L]

It looks like kici.moe uses the HTML5 and YouTube ports, not a Flash emulator. chadthundercock does use a Flash emulator.

[u/harryhinderson → u/U_L]

Are you sure you have ruffle toggled on?

[u/U_L → u/harryhinderson]

Ah, thanks. Without the Flash toggle, what I said applies. And chadthundercock does use Ruffle as well.

[u/Makin-]

/u/harryhinderson looks like someone made https://uhca.carrd.co/ with like 90 more mirrors, might be worth linking instead of the full guide, unless there's additional info in your post. Kici.moe also seems to be down.

[u/harryhinderson → u/Makin-]

Alright 👍

[u/Makin- → u/harryhinderson]

I'll be linking to this post from hs.net soon, so I recommend you focus on improving the zoomer-proof guide to installing the collection (including what "zipping" means). I'd actually really appreciate an installation video guide, we used to have one, but I can't do it myself right now...

[u/harryhinderson → u/Makin-]

The guide has been fully updated. I'll look into making a video guide. I might not be able to do it, I'll see what I can do.

[u/lavenderrys]

Hi, i’m having a little trouble on mac - when I unzip both the asset pack and the client download, I get a popup that says ‘The Unofficial Homestuck Collection cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified’ when trying to launch the client and i’m not sure how to fix it, as my only option on the popup is to move the client to the bin. Any help would be much appreciated! :)

[u/harryhinderson → u/lavenderrys]

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from-an-unknown-developer-mh40616/mac

Here’s an apple support article on the topic

[u/InsectVomit]

I’m very bad at understanding computers, can someone explain how to use the unofficial homestuck collection to me like I’m five years old? (I’m on Windows)

[u/harryhinderson → u/InsectVomit]

Download the UHC client and the asset pack. Unzip the asset pack. Run the client.

[u/InsectVomit → u/harryhinderson]

I’ve downloaded them and put them into the same folder. But what does it mean to unzip the asset pack or to run the client? (I’m so sorry for being slow, I am of the younger generation and I’ve grown up on iPads, I’m just now learning about how to actually use computers lmao)

[u/harryhinderson → u/InsectVomit]

Don't worry, its all good.

Every file has a file type. When you download the asset pack, it should be in the .zip file type, as indicated by the folder icon having a zipper over it. This is unusable.

In order to use it, you need to right click the file and select "unzip".

After that, all you need to do is run the UHC itself, which you should have downloaded using the "WINDOWS CLIENT DOWNLOAD" link, by double clicking it.

[u/InsectVomit → u/harryhinderson]

Alright, thank you!

[u/InsectVomit → u/harryhinderson]

u/strider23041

[u/strider23041 → u/InsectVomit]

Thanks!

[u/MattWeltschmerz]

Pardon my ignorance, but why not just make a .cbr/z archive, or is it not just image files?

[u/harryhinderson → u/MattWeltschmerz]

The asset pack includes a lot of text, videos, games, music, etc.

[u/MattWeltschmerz → u/harryhinderson]

Ah, thank you. Has the comic ended now? If so I'll keep an archive to preserve it.

[u/harryhinderson → u/MattWeltschmerz]

It ended in 2016. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection recently ran into a few legal issues with the author of Homestuck but luckily it’s still easily able to be downloaded.

[u/MattWeltschmerz → u/harryhinderson]

Thanks for the info; you'd think that by now anyone publishing online would know better than fight your fans helping to preserve and share their work

[u/KnottyWerewolf]

Is mspaintadventures not a good place to read it anymore?

[u/harryhinderson → u/KnottyWerewolf]

Most of the images are broken

[u/pokemonpasta]

For anyone on arch linux there are aur packages here, here (bin) and here (git)

Do your due dilligence in checking the upstreams and PKGBUILDs as always

[u/JuhaJGam3R → u/pokemonpasta]

The bin version is outdated and does not run, that's the Andrew version.

[u/pokemonpasta → u/JuhaJGam3R]

Yeah I've let the package maintainer know and I expect they'll change it over at some point. fwiw it's the one I have installed and it's working fine for me, but I installed it before all this drama went down so shrug

[u/JuhaJGam3R → u/pokemonpasta]

It refuses to run nice on Wayland and my newer X11 without a --no-sandbox and messing around with the permissions. Also installs into /opt/ which is always the sign of an odd package which ships its own libraries.

Easier, honestly, to just go on the github, untar the latest release into your downloads folder and run it from there. No problems, it's up-to-date, and since it's entirely self-contained it won't have an effect on the rest of your system so removing it is as easy as deleting the folder.

[u/pokemonpasta → u/JuhaJGam3R]

again, working fine for me on wayland. im not necessarily gonna recommend it specifically as long as it has this upstream but i was just pointing out the package exists.