I guess this is more of a writing advice sort of question- but hussie was able to make things seem "complicated" and a lot of people had trouble understanding. It's not usually a good thing to confuse your readers, but it worked for homestuck. Any idea as to why? And how a writer could get that level of complexity in their own work? Was it because things were out of order?

One of the things with Hussie’s narrative is that his work is complex, but it’s not nonsensical. It knows what it does, it knows where it wants to go, and it simply teases the audience about the journey to get to the destination. A few of Hussie’s actual writing advice is that, as long as you know what you’re doing and aren’t simply being confusing for the sake of it, people will enjoy complexity- They’ll love piecing together a carefully thought out narrative, and that kind of stories lend themselves to teasing the audience as well with arbitrary details you know they will analyze, while you’re just doing it for a joke or a reference.

Likewise, he also mentioned two really important things- He wrote Homestuck as a story he’d want to read, but didn’t exist yet. A purpose, a soul, is important for any work, even the worst piece of ficton, if presented with good intentions and trying to present something interesting, will be good. And- He wrote Homestuck as a stream of interesting events. As long as you make a story a series of interesting events, as long as there’s not just filler to get to a destination, making the journey as interesting as the destination, the fluidity of the story just happens by itself. As such, it didn’t matter if he jumped back and forth to tease people- Every moment had something to tell, and as such, Homestuck itself was something people enjoyed.