[WiP]
About
Homestuck Alternate Universe (often shortened to Homestuck AU) are alternate universe stories based on the webcomic Homestuck. These stories can vary between simple additions to the original story, to completely original stories in different settings altogether. These settings are often given titles with the suffix “-stuck”. The -stuck suffix has also become a popular feature in tagging alternate universe fanart.
Background
The story of Homestuck centers around a “game” called Sburb, which allows its players to inventorize, level up, and other common elements in role-playing games, in a somewhat similar way in real life. As the story progresses, it is revealed that the fate of the entire human race and eventually the entire universe is determined by the performance of the players in the game.
Homestuck’s story telling style follows the characters as they progress in the game while interacting with their fellow players. The actions the characters take in the story are told and explained through text below the pages, commonly containing chat logs of the characters communicating with each other. Each “page” in Homestuck commonly contains one or multiple images or gifs with text or chat logs below it, but also includes flash animations and interactive games at times. Regularly the actions taking place on a page are being “influenced” by sources who recide in the game, including several self insertions of Andrew Hussie.
The basic premise of the comic has been described as inspired by games like The Sims, Spore and EarthBound. Homestuck was initially supposed to progress by fan contributions, with the fans deciding what actions the characters would take. The creator of Homestuck, Andrew Hussie, was eventually forced to move away from this style when the fandom started to grow significantly, due to fan input become too big and time consuming. Although Hussie now controls the progress of the story, he still visits fan blogs and forums for ideas to add into the webcomic.
Spread
It is eventually revealed that Homestuck takes place in a multiverse, which each of these universes having their own Sburb game client and characters who play it. Within each universe, the concept of “doomed timelines” (alternate timelines doomed to fail) has also been implanted. Both these factors often influence the main storyline of Homestuck, with characters from alternate universes and doomed timelines commonly making appearances in the story and even being of significant influence to its outcome. Due to these factors, alternate universe stories are rather easy to implant into the main story, giving the explanation that it takes place in an unknown timeline or universe of Homestuck’s multiverse.