The site theme is the design and format of the MS Paint Adventures website. Until Homestuck, the site used a single theme, however over the course of Homestuck alternate themes were used due to events occurring in the narrative. On the original MS Paint Adventures website, each theme was contained in its own .php document, which was included as part of the page URL. The current website instead loads all themes at once, and chooses which one to display via CSS rules.
Theme switching[]
The theme can be manually altered to change the theme on one page to another theme. On the current website, this can be done by opening the browser's development tools (Ctrl+Shift+I in Firefox and Chromium-based browsers) and changing data-theme on the second line of the page HTML to a different value. This will be retained until either refreshing the page, or navigating to a page which has a different "intended" theme from the previous one.
As of October 29, 2025, the following values for data-theme are supported:
Using any other value will display the base theme.
On the original website[]
Theme switching was achieved via altering the URL, however as pages using an alternate theme automatically switched to their specified theme, this restricted theme switching to pages using the default theme, except in cases where the default theme was itself the specified theme. Most alternate themes were also restricted to their specified pages, and attempting to use them outside of Homestuck would result in being redirected back to Homestuck.
Although most pages on the original website now redirect to homestuck.com, the unused default theme copies remain functional, allowing the website to still be accessed in a limited capacity.
List of themes[]
Default theme[]
The default theme of the MSPA site is a simple design with the borders of the site having a dark grey color, the content is framed by a lighter grey, while the content is finally bordered and the news is displayed atop a near-white background.
On the original website, while the theme had its own specific .php document (index.php), it did not need to be specified in the URL like the other themes. The default theme was the only theme that could be switched for another, however pages using the default theme in Homestuck after
the SBaHJ themed page (with the exception of bonus pages) had the default theme explicitly specified and so could not be changed.
Scratch theme[]
The Scratch theme is first used in Homestuck when Doc Scratch takes over the narration as he believes the reader “will find [his] voice is more palatable” against the green background. By default, pages using this theme are topped by a banner displaying Doc Scratch's apartment, however the contents of the banner change to fit the narration. During the Scratch theme some alternate text colors are used, most notably a different color is used for Gamzee's text. This was one of the four known themes that could replace the default theme before the site move.
SBaHJ theme[]
A Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff theme used for a single page in Homestuck when Andrew Hussie unsuccessfully attempts to end the Scratch theme, requiring him to make a second attempt. The theme uses a blue, purple, and green color scheme and changes the font of the entire page to Comic Sans. On the original site, the news section was titled "NEWNS" and the Hella Jeff image linked to the SBaHJ comic. This was one of the four known themes that could replace the default theme before the site move.
Cascade theme[]
A theme especially created for Cascade. The site background is darker than usual, and at the top is an image of the countdown on the Tumor, stuck at 10:25. When used on non-Cascade pages, the box surrounding the current panel and the background of the MSPA logo retain their default colors, as these were not intended to be visible with this theme.
Trickster theme[]
A theme that appears after Trickster Mode is activated in-comic. On the original site, the top banner would make trickster sound effects when clicked.
As of October 29, 2025, no pages that use this theme are currently present on the new website, but the theme is implemented internally and can be seen by navigating to a page number that would normally use it or by manually setting data-theme to trickster.
x2 Combo theme[]
After Gamzee and Caliborn activate a function on the MSPA command station the site enters a dual screen mode. The appearance is that of the default theme, however two pages are loaded side by side. There is a single image spanning the top of both pages, the advertisements usually found on the right are located in the middle, and the latest pages section is on both the rightmost and leftmost edges of the page.
While in this theme, every other link in the "New Pages" sidebars leads to the page preceding the intended page. The same applies when attempting to override other site themes with this theme through URL manipulation.
As of October 29, 2025, no pages that use this theme are currently present on the new website, but it appears to be at least partially implemented internally - when navigating to a page number that would normally use it, the dual-screen layout will briefly appear (with empty content) before being replaced by the standard 404 page.
Caliborn theme[]
A theme used to indicate Caliborn's control over the narrative. The color scheme is changed to several shades of green and a red circle representing one of Caliborn's cheeks appears on each side of the top ad banner. The top menu links now have disparaging captions directed towards the thing they link to (the "Shop" link, for example, now reads “OVERPRICED TRASH.”) and the candy corns are replaced with cherub teeth. Additionally, Caliborn has written on top of the "Latest Pages", "News" and "Sponsors" headings and changed them to “LAME”, “ZZZZZ.”, and “BAD.”, respectively.
Scroll theme[]
Used here and here, it is a theme which includes a blinking forward progression arrow at the bottom (to instruct the reader to scroll), as well as a scrollbar. If the image is wider than 1107 pixels, the scrollbar is horizontal and located on the bottom. If the image is taller than 512 pixels, the scrollbar is vertical and located on the right. Otherwise, the scrollbar is not present. This theme also makes everything below the actual comic content inaccessible.
Scroll theme b[]
There is a secondary scroll site theme, which features an all-black background, and apparently no other normal site features. An audio Flash item is placed at the top center.
Collide theme[]
A theme especially created for Act 6 Act 6 Act 6, Collide. The site background is black, and at the top is an image of an ocean, reading ACT 6 ACT 6 ACT 6. The theme does not contain news posts or update logs. It also does not contain the auto save and delete game data options.
Act 7 theme[]
A theme especially created for Act 7. The site background is entirely white and the header displays the white curtains and the words "ACT 7". It is not used on the final panel of the comic, but curtains are shown closing in the final panel's gif.
Unused themes[]
Default theme copies[]
Several unused copies of the default theme from various points in time exist on the old website. These are not really "themes" in the traditional sense, but can be used in place of index.php in the same way as real themes. Due to being unused, these were not replaced by redirects to homestuck.com during the site move, and are still accessible to this day.
test_index.php (with an underscore) was seemingly used many times to test upcoming changes to the site before they went live. It has existed since June 2009[1] or earlier, and appears to have last been updated sometime around 2014 based on the banners present on the page and the fact that the list of latest pages displays every single page, rather than just the first page of each update (as has been the norm since the end of the gigapause). This is the most up-to-date version of the old website that is still currently accessible.
newindex.php appears to be a version of the site from around mid-2011 based on the banners shown on the page, and was likely used to test the new site design introduced around that time. It features minor style differences from test_index.php and later versions of the default theme. Openbound pages do not function while using it, but can still be accessed.
testindex.php (with no underscore) appears to be a version of the site from right before the 19 August 2011 redesign. The major differences between it and its successor are that the list of "latest pages" is located on the right-hand side of the page, the MSPA logo is displayed as one image on the left (similar to the Scratch theme) instead of two on either side of the advertising space, and that the header of the pages is a tiny bit larger. Oddly, it does not display news posts past 2011, and cannot be used to view comic pages past Doc Scratch's takeover - both traits which are not shared with the other default theme copies.
When using these in the modern day, many pages will still redirect to the current website (particularly those that use non-default themes), and flashes will not work unless using a browser that still supports real Adobe Flash - the Ruffle extension is not sufficient, as badly configured security headers prevent it from being able to access the .swf files (although they can still be played back in a separate tab).
Dark theme[]
An unused theme which is possibly an unfinished attempt at a dark mode. It uses various shades of black and gray for the background, but most text colors are not changed, making them difficult or impossible to read. It retains the wide page content and generic font from the base theme due to not having values specified for these. The adventure map and search box backgrounds use the Sgrub purple color, indicating that this theme may have been intended to be associated with the trolls or Hivebent in some way.
It is not used on any pages and can only be accessed by manually setting data-theme to dark.
Dirk theme[]
An unused theme which appears identical to the base theme, except that the adventure map and search box backgrounds use Dirk Strider's text color. It is not used on any pages and can only be accessed by manually setting data-theme to dirk.
Base theme[]
A "theme" which is used if data-theme is set to any invalid value. This is the base which all other themes are built on top of, and many aspects of it are simply the result of uninitialized values falling back to browser- or system-defined defaults, such as using a generic font and the page filling the entire width of the window. Oddly, however, the background color for the adventure map and search box has been set to the Sburb Beta green color, despite being overridden by all "intended" themes; the trait of having unusual colors here is shared with the other two unused themes.
References[]
- ↑ Wayback Machine. June 14, 2009.