So, I reread the first act of Homestuck towards the end of May 2025. The last time I read act 1 of Homestuck was probably when I was around 14 years old (2011?). I'm 28 years old right now. I remembered basically nothing. Of course, I remembered John, Dave, Rose and Jade. I remembered that John had a dad that made an appearance and that the comic is about these kids playing Sburb. I also remembered the meteor thing. That's literally every detail I remembered. I'm just gonna basically write all of my thoughts without much structure, sorry.

When I was first reading it, I think John was my favorite character, at least until the trolls were introduced. Of course, in Act 1, he is the only character we know basically anything about. I honestly only remembered that he liked Nicolas Cage. My current impression of him, since 14 years was apparently enough to wipe my entire brain, is that he's a nerdy kid who wants to be a magician and I think I respect that. What we know about John is that he lives with his (seemingly) very supportive father. His father collects harlequins and seems a bit unusual.

Rose is the second character I actually have opinions on right now. I like her way more than I remember liking her when I was reading this as a teenager. We don't know much about her as of the end of act 1, but we do know she's goth and probably the funniest character out of the first group of main characters introduced. She seemingly has a neglectful, possibly emotionally abusive, mother who clearly has a ton of money. That's mostly what we know about Rose so far.

I'm not liking Dave as much as I remember and I don't think Jade has really been in the story yet, so I don't have much to say about that.

As for the story and setting, obviously, not much happens in act 1. I mean, a lot happens, but nothing happens. I'm assuming people who have read Homestuck know what I mean. I feel like it's hard to really discuss the first act without just recapping it and going "that is stuff that happened". I was mostly wondering how a game that manipulates the real world just came out and none of them are like "hey what the hell, why is this game manipulating the real world, why are you able to move my toilet to the backyard? How is that possible?" but I guess it would be annoying to spend time having the characters rationalize all of this and it's best to just have everybody accept that this is possible and happening. I feel like Homestuck is one of those things where you just have to accept that the things that are happening are happening and not overthink it. Rose demolished John's real life bathroom via a video game. Don't worry about it.

I'm going to dedicate the last part of updates like this to "fandom miscellanea", I guess. Shipping and theories. I have no input on either of those things right now. I'm simply vibing.