#I'm almost embarrassed to tag this self indulgent word soup

[1007xf]

With the 4th of August just around the corner, I was thinking about a little something The Tapestry does that I really like and that is its portrayal of how it is to be a weird lonely little nerd.

Warning comically huge rant. I wasn't planning for it to be this long. I do not know what possessed me. It's 2:30 in the morning.

In Homestuck proper, the beta kids are also lonely kids who only really have eachother, however Homestuck's setting kind of obscures this fact because Beta Earth, really, truly, feels empty. Unless there is something I'm forgetting (I haven't read actual Homestuck in a while, oops. I should really re-read.) Beta Earth is just normal 2009 Earth. And you can see that if you look at all of the cultural references in it. Earth Beta isn't empty because all of John's shitty movies had to have been produced by someone, because someone had to have been frequenting Bro's weird puppet porn website, because we literally see other human beings talk trough the Internet on Dad's PDA and such (I wonder whatever happened to fedoraFreak haha). Beta Earth isn't objectively empty, of course. Yet it feels like so, because its main cast seems to only superficially exist in it. You could probably assume John, Rose and Dave all went to school (funnily enough I looked it up and April 13th 2009 was a Monday. Damn brats, skipping middle school so they can contribute to the creation of a new Universe.) because that's what kids their age do (Jade doesn't count for obvious reasons). Yet we never really seem to see or hear about all that. These kids only interact with eachother and their guardians (well, the living ones anyway), and so it's hard to see Beta Earth as a planet with a living breathing ~6880 billion humans on it. It's really more of a cardboard cutout of Earth, where the idea of culture and people is there, but none of the moving parts are present.

And so, it really feels like, even though Jade is the only one who is actually secluded, all 4 kids live in isolation, their only window to social interaction being their computers and the Pester Chum client. It feels like John, Rose, Dave and Jade are the only real individuals on Earth, because even their guardians don't feel like much more than placeholders or just vessels for one joke or stereotype. And this makes it seem like the kids are placed in this impossible full yet empty world, which is not something any of us are living in (I hope so!).

Most lonely people aren't alone . You can't say Homestuck's portrayal of loneliness, especially at that young pre-teen to teen age is accurate because it literally feels like the cast is alone (sans Jade bla bla I said this already) and so of course they'd be lonely. In any case, it portrays being lonely (take a shot everytime I write this word. Or don't! It depends on how suicidal you're feeling at this particular moment) all the same, just in a different (and less likely) way.

And with that bigger than I expected speil about Homestuck out of the way, let's get to the actual post. It has been said already the The Tapestry is an amazing MSPFA on so many fronts, but I'll say it again, just because it deserves it. The Tapestry is great, go read it if you haven't.

The main cast of the comic (sadly not counting Sedranovel, Limeweld and Expanaiver. I know they're technically also protagonists but they just.... don't really fit the idea I'm trying to portray here. Sorry!) is also 4 youths who play a God Damn Game. They're aliens too, but they're "like a human but..." type of alien, so their world is not all that different form ours. And a thing you'll notice right away as you start reading the comic is the emphasis that is placed on the worldbuilding, from the grand aspects like the the Solar System on the alien world and its geographical and political structure to the minute aspects like a mecha anime or the educational system of just one of many nations. Right of the bat, unlike Beta Earth, Siltsphere is bustling with life, culture, conflict. It helps that we also get to literally see other setyrs, lots of them in fact. It's nice eye candy, since they're usually part of the huge sweeping landscape scenery porn pages, but it's also a stark reminder of what is at stake. All of the supernatural fuckery afoot now affects not only the protagonists but also a planets entire civilization.

And yet, the main cast seems to gravitate towards eachother only. And unlike in Homestuck, we know that they have acquaintances and that they talk to others. Sosav mentions her neighbors, Handa makes friends with the pagan kids at his school, Deime tries (and fails) to connect with his countrymen. They have a form of social lives, each different, but they exist and they acknowledge the existence of a complex world with lots of real individuals. But they're all best friends with eachother. Oenia mentions that she doesn't really have friends outside of the other 3 and I think this is true for all of them.

Each off the 4 main characters is a bit weird and they're all definitely huge nerds. That is to say, they're all very passionate about their interests. And, sadly, intense passion, especially when directed at something not viewed as necessary to society, can sometimes be very alienating. Because most of the time it's hard to find someone who shares the same spark of love for that thing. I think Handa illustrates this problem the best, what with his... I want to say inferiority complex but that sounds kind of mean haha. He definitely loves history and art, and he is good at them too. Excellent, really. And yet, we hardly see him proud of his achievements. Because he thinks that his talents are a waste of time and energy, because they're not "necessary". Because those passions don't prepare you for a "real job". Because the world goes round thanks to the work of scientists, not artists. This is all really relatable to me personally, to a scarily accurate degree. And this sort of thinking is sisyphean, really. Because you'll reach a high where you think you did good, where you look at your art and say "wow, I've gotten better, this genuinely looks good!", but then the little shitty voice at the back of your mind will remind you that drawing won't help you solve cancer or launch rockets or whatever and therefore you're useless to society. And if this thinking sounds dramatic that's because that's how it is. Sosav literally calls Handa out on this, which shines a light on the fact that, since Handa lives in an almost-utopia society, he really shouldn't have to worry about stuff like that. And he shouldn't, but he does, because this line of thinking doesn't make sense anyway!

I wrote all that just for one of the characters! Imagine if sat down to dissect the others too. I could write 3 different posts just about Deime. But I won't because then I'll probably forget what the point of the post actually is. Yeah, there's a point. Remember the point? Jesus.

The point about being a lonely stupid nerdy kid. Like I said before, being super into something can sort of isolate you from your peers, because it's just hard to connect with those you don't have a lot in common with. But that doesn't mean you won't talk. You'll greet eachother, have meaningless conversations about whatever during recess, maybe you'll even hang out outside of school. But, really, there will never be anything there. Because it just feels like your brains are wired differently. Of course, I feel like the parallel to neurodiversity is starting to become obvious here. I'd say more, but I'm not an expert and while I do suspect that I am neurodivergent myself, I was never and probably will never be diagnosed by a professional, so I can't really say I'm in a position to write about this.

That's how you become lonely without being alone. And it's worse, because you'll see the people (or setyrs, I guess) in front of you and they're your age, and they're just like you, and they're going trough the same life experiences, but there just isn't any spark there. The thread to connect to them just isn't long enough.

That's why you need other weirdo nerds in your life. And thank fuck for the Internet. Because otherwise, where would I be ranting into the void about some fancomic to probably one or two people, or maybe just myself? Hah.

The main characters are all into very different things and they're from pretty different environments, yet they seem to click together anyway. And it's because I think when you're a passionate nerd, seeing someone just like you makes you admire them. And they don't have to be way better or more skilled than you, they could be just at your level, yet you feel enamoured by their passion nonetheless and they feel the same for you and that's friendship! Handa admires Sosav for her physics knowledge and Oenia for her art improvement, Deime, despite his bickering with Handa, definitely recognizes his (comically potent) art skills and Oenia is amazed by Deime's "search engine skills". It's all really cute. I love it when in bigger groups of friends you can tell that everyone is friends with everyone and they all have unique relationships with eachother.

That being said, I believe that, miraculously, I may be reaching the end of my... whatever this is. This thought vomit. This is mainly just me writing down whatever came to mind with only a rough idea of what I wanted to say. Is more or less a clusterfuck but I did manage to say some things I had on the brain. High chance there's grammar or spelling mistakes in here I didn't catch on my proofread, so sorry for that. Good night 👋 and read da damn comic.