Homestuck is incredibly long, so to make navigation easier, it's been conveniently divided into acts by its creator.
Homestuck By Act
- "The Note Desolation Plays": Starts on the main character's (named John Egbert) 13th birthday. He is looking forward to playing a game called Sburb with his internet friends. He strives to avoid his father and get his copy of Sburb. Later, he starts up the game with Rose Lalonde as the server. It appears at first to be a The Sims-like game in real life. Unfortunately, a meteor hits and seemingly destroys John's house.
- "Raise of the Conductor's Baton": Years in the future, but not many, a wayward vagabond finds a computer screen which shows him the panicked visage of a young boy: John Egbert. Lost and scared in a shadowy new dimension, John begins to discover the scope of Sburb and his role in it while getting strange suggestions from the vagabond watching him. Meanwhile, Dave Strider tries to get his brother's copy of Sburb after inadvertently losing his.
- "Insane Corkscrew Haymakers": Beginning with the introduction of the fourth and final kid, Jade Harley, Act 3 sees the kids finally land on their feet and begin to take control of the chaos of Sburb, whether it means fighting giant clowns, rapping otakus, or even their own dogs.
- "INTERMISSION": The Midnight Crew ransack the mansion of a rival mob boss, Lord English, and kill his fifteen pool-themed men along the way. Initially, this seems to be a complete left turn from the main plot, but this intermission is more relevant than it may at first seem.
- "Flight of the Paradox Clones": John and Rose explore the Sburb world with increasing interference from internet trolls and their "exiles." As they enjoy (and learn how their pre-Sburb lives were entrenched in) the game's mechanics, Jack Noir gets into a workplace conflict with his boss, the Black Queen. Eventually, he kills her and starts to take over.
- Act 5 is split into two sub-acts:
- "MOB1US DOUBL3 R34CH4ROUND": Also known as "Hivebent," this act exclusively deals with the various trolls who have bothered our human protagonists and details their lives before and during the game of Sburb.
- "He is already here.": The trolls and humans begin to work together in order to stabilize and survive their mutated Sburb sessions.
- End of Act 5, "Cascade": As Jade and John try to survive in the chaos that is their rapidly ending session, Dave and Rose try to destroy the source of all of the problems that they're facing: the Green Sun. As the session "Scratches" (resets), they each find a way to escape their session's imminent destruction.
- Act 6 is split into six sub-acts and six intermissions:
- "Through Broken Glass": Jane Crocker wakes up, long since past her thirteenth birthday, and eagerly awaits the arrival of her copy of the Sburb Alpha while Jake English finishes a present for his pen pal.
- "corpse party": After the chaotic climax of Act 5, all the characters regroup to plan for how to complete Sburb from here. Eventually, they decide to take a three year long journey which will end with them meeting up with Jane and her friends.
- "Your Shit Is Wrecked": Roxy Lalonde drunkenly goes about her day, trying to convince Jane to give up on Sburb in order to spite the evil Batterwitch. Meanwhile, Dirk Strider tries to micromanage his friends while already leading a double life.
- "penis ouija": One year into their journey, the survivors of Act 5 deal with their newfound boredom.
- "Nobles": As Jane, Jake, Roxy, and Dirk begin their own session of Sburb, the mysterious troll UU finds herself under threat from her brother, who seems intent on killing her and everyone she loves.
- "Ballet of the Dancestors": Meenah, a long-dead troll, scours the afterlife looking for souls willing to help her tackle the Big Bad in a massive army as the survivors of Act 5 enter their second year of travel.
- "Void": Jane and friends spend six months searching their largely empty session.
- "Dead": A young villain begins his journey to power by engaging in conversation with The Narrator of Homestuck.
- "Of Gods and Tricksters": Relationship drama tears Jake, Jane, and Dirk apart while Roxy struggles to keep everyone together, especially in the face of a rather heavy-handed drug addiction analogy.
- "I'M PUTTING YOU ON SPEAKER CRAB": The cast from Act 5 are all shocked by how fast three years went past on the very day they are set to meet up with Jane and her friends. The only one not frantically preparing is John, who's entered the afterlife through his dreams and finds a treasure that plays with the very reality John is bound to.
- Act 6 Act 6 is then divided into it's own six acts and intermissions. It's convoluted.
- "Homosuck": Caliborn takes over the narrative from the actual author of Homestuck and replaces it with a "satire" filled with his own terrible illustrations. That is, until he finds a super-cartridge for Homestuck that's meant to unlock the last part of the story. He fills it with stardust and puts it in, causing the story to continue with some unexpected glitches.
- "Stardust": The glitches wipe everyone's memory of what happened since they arrived in the Post-Scratch session, as the possessed Jade and Jane separates everyone into groups that suite Betty Crocker's plans. As this happens, John tries to understand his new "retcon powers" as he eludes Jade's attempts to capture him.
- "LOSHIT": Caliborn's Homosuck continues with a focus on Dave and the female humans, who are reduced to Dave's objects of affections. It follows the first Homosuck act until John teleports into Homosuck itself and tries to stop Caliborn's perversion of his life from the inside.
- "theres problems": One of the Pre-Scratch trolls, Aranea, steals the Ring of Life and uses it to resurrect herself in the beginning of her plan to sabotage the Post-Scratch human session to stop Lord English from ever being born. She brainwashes Gamzee, crashes a gunship into Derse, jumpstarts Jake into an explosion of power, and ends up getting every living person in the session (except John) onto the Land of Frost and Frogs as Her Imperious Condescension herself arrives.
- "GOD'S GIFT TO THE YAOIS": Homosuck continues with Caliborn's newly plagiarized Eastern sensibilities, only for John to teleport in Caliborn's room and confront the man he knows will become the Big Bad of his entire existence. Caliborn addresses the audience and lets them know John's only going to get one thing:
- "GAME OVER": As John beats up Caliborn, the battle on the Land of Frost and Frogs leaves most of the cast dead.
- "Dark Night of the Feelings": Caliborn despairs over his defeat at John's hand, only to request the audience crowdfund the last act of Homosuck for him.
- "F1X TH1S": John, Roxy and Terezi try to use the abilities John gained from the House treasure to change the narrative of Homestuck to end a different way.
- "Masterpiece": Caliborn shows his masterpiece and the finale of Homosuck: a claymation rendition of his future battle with the eight Kids, which ends with the origin of the Big Bad, Lord English.
- "She's 8ack": The kids and the surviving trolls reunite on the Genesis platform as John and Roxy retcon-teleport in from their adventure to bring Vriska to life. All the characters go over their personal drama as they strategize how to face Her Imperious Condescension, the three Jack Noirs, the Felt, and Lord English himself.
- "Collide:" The final battle of Homestuck.
- "The Rapture": The seventh and final act of Homestuck sees the Kids complete their game of Sburb, as the Big Bad simultaneously begins his rise to power and meets his final foe.
Post Canon:
Although not an Act, the credits detail the lives of surviving characters after the ending. There is further content detailing extra-canonical and post-canon facets of the universe. After this, several Spin-Off materials were released, before a proper epilogue chapter and an official, extra-canonical sequel would come out as well.
- "Paradox Space": Short, fan-submitted vignettes about different non-canonical stories with the Homestuck cast.
- "Skaianet ARG": A website in relation to the Harley family's company, Skaianet. Hosted on skaianetsystems.com
- Contained files labelled "Cursed Histories" which can be read on the Wiki, detailing the rise of the Condesce and the timeline of Grandpa Harley and Nanna Egbert.
- HiveSwap: A Spin-Off Adventure Game set in the main continuity of the story during The '90s, detailing what happened to Beta Jake (i.e., Grandpa Harley)'s two children. Followed up by a Visual Novel Interquel Spin-Off named Hiveswap Friendsim.
- Epilogues: A series of mock-fanfiction texts released to accompany the credits, focusing on the main cast. The plot centers around John's last choice in relation to the canonical timeline of Homestuck.
- Pesterquest: A Visual Novel Sequel Spin-Off of Hiveswap Friendsim, set in the Homestuck universe. Connects directly with the epilogues right at the end. The protagonist of Friendsim, the MSPA Reader, finds themselves amnesiac in the main Homestuck continuity, and able to travel through time and between universes after being taken by Doc Scratch. After befriending the entire human and troll cast (minus the Alpha Trolls) and preventing them from playing the game in the first place, the Reader is confronted by Ultimate Dirk and the game's director, who urge them to undo the damage they've done to the canonical timeline. The Reader instead locks the current timeline away from main continuity, so as to prevent it from interfering with canon and vice versa, becoming its guardian in the process.
- "The Homestuck Epilogues": At the end of Act 7, all time loops that make up the story are closed, except for one, in which John and the rest of the Beta kids must travel back in time, fight Caliborn, lose and get caught in Caliborn's juju, then be released and help defeat Lord English. John is urged by a deathly ill Rose to stop putting it off and start recruiting younger versions of the cast to complete the time loop, or else the timeline they currently occupy will become non-canonical, which would effectually make it unravel into more or less fanfiction in a cosmic meta way. It is split into two possible "routes", Meat and Candy, based on whether John ultimately chooses to travel back into the story proper, or stay and actually try to enjoy his life. Both timelines offshot from this later lead into Homestuck: Beyond Canon.
- "Meat": John elects to travel back into the story and go through the final confrontation with Lord English. After participating in the fight and getting fatally injured, John dies shortly after reuniting with Terezi. All of this is later revealed to be narrated by Dirk, who has ascended into what is reffered to as his Ultimate Self; essentially every alternate version of himself coalesced into a single entity. Dirk has also taken control of the narrative and is aware of the entire nature of the story. Dirk goes on to brainwash and kidnap Rose, who is also going through the same process, install Jane as president of Earth-C, and escape for parts unknown. Jade's body is taken over by the version of Calliope who killed Lord English, and guides Dave, Karkat, Kanaya and Roxy in pursuit of Dirk, while attempting to keep Dirk from further interfering with the timeline.
- "Candy": John decides to stay in this new timeline and try to move on with his life to get over his depressive slump. Dirk then commits suicide. Gamzee is then freed from the fridge and declared to be redeemed by himself and a few others. Over the course of nearly 20 years, John becomes increasingly detached from the world around him and his friends. He marries Roxy, they have a son named Harry Anderson Egbert, and later divorce. Jane is elected as president of Earth-C and becomes a xenophobic authocrat bent on keeping Trolls as second class citizens with limited reproductive rights. She also has a son with Jake, named Tavros Crocker. Karkat, Dave, Jade and Meenah's ghost form a guerrilla resistance against Jane's government, fighting in a war for several years. Kanaya and Rose don't immediately join them out of concern for the safety of their daughter, a clone of Vriska they raised and named Vriska. While exploring some ruins, Dave finds a holographic projection of ex-president and Dirk's ex-boyfriend Barack Obama, who leads him into a robot body prepared by Dirk to download his consciousness into, and unlocks his own Ultimate Self.
- Both timelines would carry on as separate stories in Homestuck: Beyond Canon.
