#does anyone still like homestuck

[volkskaa]

These are dumb and from a discord server. I made em tho

[catgirlweed]

woof... bitch imma dog!

[arlesposting]

i'm back with more 17776 content, welcome to my dungeon, you're all stuck here forever.

today i decided to do a webcomic swap! '76 characters in homestuck and homestuck characters in '76!

we've got the main probes in a pesterlog, and some of the beta kids in a chapter! :D it's also really good practice with understanding characters by writing dialogue for them, so i love doing it. i didn't want them to be conversations with an obvious start and finish, so i did this thingy where i cut them off so it looks like there's supposed to be more dialogue after, but that you have to go to the next page or scroll to see the rest. interpret them however else you want beyond that, i just make the things i don't really give them much set meaning unless i really want to :p

here's SOME MORE pesterlogs cause I got really obsessed with making them after I cut myself loose with the blank pesterlog template i made

i use juice way too much in these but i really like writing conversations with him GUHHHH >_< also, i am spreading my ed kreiger and hubble agenda through these, they deserve more love, live laugh love ed kreiger. hubble felt like confirmation to me that there are infact other probes out there, just that they're not the main focus, so there's not much of a reason to speak with them, and i imagine that when the pioneers are in hibernation juice likes to talk to hubble cause they match his vibes, especially with how they speak similarly. :]

feel free to give me more characters to write these with if y'all like them, they're lots of fun! personally i've been considering doing fanchapters and parodies, like something involving a 500 game operator and a little short story along the lines of 'what hockey will look like in the future', so please tell me what you think! ^_^

[rudecurator]

so you know the part of friendsim 2 where cirava lets you make them a shitty stream thumbnail? obviously i just made the most comically bullshit swill ever because what else do i do? but the game clearly saw fit to punish me for my hubris by immediately throwing two consecutive errors as soon as i tried to submit it

[shame-kink]

someday we will invent a vaccine for kids getting into south park

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

413 thoughts:

"Duela Dent" is an objectively hysterical name, and an even funnier character

look at this... Terezicoded Subjuggulator Olivebood Crotuna Lovechild

^THAT IS NOT A COMBINATION OF THINGS THAT SHOULD EXIST

[mantisgodsdomain]

Very fun to be an dormant Homestuck in 2023. We saw a post with an aside about the mid-to-highblood bias present in the fandom and we took a moment to think "wait, what?" before remembering how much people posted about Mallek, Lanque, and Marvus. Obviously no one asked our opinion on the matter but we think that a lot of the bias here may just be because fandom people will jump at any vaguely conventionally attractive male character who can say something angsty, and we don't see 99% of this effect because we rapidly get fatigued with any character who is overly present in the fandom and any ship that has overrepresentation in the sample size and start blocking tags.

Very highly effective approach, admittedly, but it leaves us a bit out of the loop. We only really start encountering Issues with that approach in smaller fandoms when blocking any given popular ship will instantly shrink our mutual circle to Just Us and maybe, like, one guy who we dragged in here ourself, so we have to relax blocking standards somewhat and just make it "blocked for a week" or something similar.

[legandairy-horror]

Does anyone else feel a strange sort of dread waiting for new deltarune chapters?

It sounds crazy right? I admit it's a weird feeling for sure, and I'm not even 100% sure if dread is the right way to describe it. But as more info is revealed and the next chapter inevitably gets closer and closer to releasing I can't help but feel a strange sort of, melancholy? Longing? The only way I can describe it is "when you know the goodbye is coming". The strange somber feeling when you know you’re going to have to leave stuff behind, but aren't quite ready for it yet.

warning: words. Homestuck

In 3 months Chapter 1 will be 6 years old, and in 2 months Chapter 2 will be 3 years old. Deltarune is ostensibly in Early Access but this release schedule puts new chapters closer in time scale to whole sequals if anything, which they most assuredly are not trying to be. This has created a strange situation in the fanbase that I don't think I've ever truly seen anywhere else. One where, In the time between chapters It feels like everyone has had their own chance to decide what Deltarune is to them. To create their own version of this story, to write their own themes that they want to see explored, to imagine their own events and plot twists they want to see play out.

@lynxgriffin Paper Trail Comic Being an Alternate Story following off of chapter 1

@lilybug-02 The Chara Timeline Being one of many interpretations on the popular Asriel & Chara roommates headcannon.

@huecycles Andromeda Chapters being their interpretation on the full game

The innumerable Deltarune Theorists and analysts like HalfBreadChaos, Andrew Cunningham, Stuffed Alpaca, etc. etc.

@vyletbunni Deltatraveler being a whole ass fangame based around a chapter 2 meme that it has long since outlived

And that's kinda the thing isn't it? Once more deltarune comes out, a ton of these projects will just become outdated, it's an inevitability. So what will happen to them? will they become forgotten? maybe, maybe not, it's impossible to tell. but either way it feels kinda sad to think about yknow? that one day all the time and effort spent and all the memories made might one day just cease to exist.

There's a lot more I could say on this topic if given the chance but to keep this tumblr post from morphing into a 2 hour long video essay in text form let me leave off with this.

In the age of the internet and social media there will always be a fan of something. Nothing truly dies quite like it used to anymore, regardless of whatever influencers want you to believe. But that doesn't mean things stop changing, that there wasn't a past that has since been left behind. I'm a Homestuck fan. more specifically I'm a Late Homestuck fan, one who came in after the comic had already ended and it's peak in popularity was long behind it. The fandom's still around all these years later. But it'd be foolish to admit that, 8 years after the comics controversial end, the inescapable trend of new fans replacing old fans has left the fandom wholly disconnected from the monolith that it once was. the only remnants of which lie in decades old discourse and fanfiction. Like old relics of a long forgotten city, waiting to be excavated under a fine layer of dirt.

Before I close out here I just want to make it clear: I'm not saying that we should be trying to return to some nebulous "glorious past" that never really existed. I'm not trying to deride Toby Fox for not working in the sweatshop hard enough to produce more content™, or whatever you wanna try and spin-doctor this post into. It's just a thought that creeps into my head every now that I wanted to share, see if anyone feels the same, yknow?

Besides it's not all doom and gloom. For those of you OG Homestucks who read till the end. You remember Heinoustuck? Guidestuck? Nightfall? Fucking Ke$haStuck? yeah those are still going by the way! after years of inactivity they've now started back up again. some under new authors and some by the same author but still!

You could say a lot about that but to me at least, it makes me feels hopeful in a way. That, even if not everything will survive. we'll at least have some mementos to remember what came before.

[thewertsearch]

TG: jakes bday is coming up really soon TG: just a few days before mine remembr […] TG: i just wanted your advice on what to get him TG: something sentimental i guess? but i mean im mostly tapped out of precious heirlooms atm so idk TG: but not like anything coming on too strong

I don't think you need to overthink things, where Jake is concerned. Just like John, he strikes me as a rather straightforward guy, and would probably appreciate the direct approach.

Seriously, just be upfront with your feelings. He'll respond with either "capital! let us begin courting, post-haste!", or "sincerest apologies, my dear compatriot, but my heart lies with my cerulean beauties!"

Either way, the issue will be resolved. Simple as that.

TG: something that says TG: this is totes platonic and everything TG: no eyebrow raising funnybiz is goin on over here TG: but still says you know TG: call me TG: if you wanna

Nah, I'm just fucking with you.

These are teenagers. They're full of big emotions that they don't know what to do with, and they're navigating the treacherous waters of romance without a map. I might have dunked on Eridan when he said it, back in our Hivebent days, but when you're a kid, growing up really is hard, and nobody does understand. Not even you.

Roxy's not going to initiate a frank discussion about her feelings with Jake - she's going to pine for at least fifty pages, and then impulsively confess everything at once, probably in the middle of a crisis. Sometimes, that's just how it goes, when you're a teenager - and it's always how it goes when you're a fictional teenager.

TG: u dont think that if i didnt say he was off limits on account of you being my best friend TG: i wouldnt be all the hell over that????

Wait, ok. So Roxy is pretending she's going to flirt with Jake - but she's really just messing with Jane, because Jane's also into him.

It's nice that there's no bad blood between the two as a result. You just know that in a lesser story, Jane and Roxy would proceed to squabble over this guy until it completely ruined their friendship. Thank you, Homestuck, very cool!

TG: you dont even let me say your dad is hot even though we both know he way the fuck is i mean come one

In every timeline, Roxy is destined to swoon over the prefect gentleman that is Dad Egbert.

GG: I don't see why you don't try to court the favor of Mr. Strider. If you ask me, he and you are perfect for each other. TG: oh jane TG: so naive TG: soooo niaev

The Bro we knew probably shouldn't have been dating anyone. Perhaps this version of him is equally unapproachable, and Roxy knows it - his little out-of-office responder would certainly suggest that that's the case.

GG: How can you be this fargone so early? […] TG: its a lot later here GG: You're three hours ahead of me! TG: youd would be amazed TG: how much can happen TG: in 3 hours GG: Tsk. What would your mother have to say if she caught you? TG: p sure she wouldnt give a shit

Rose, what the fresh fuck!

Look - guys, I know she's not exactly the maternal type, but come on. Even the adult Roxy, absent and alcoholic as she was, at least lifted a finger to keep her daughter safe, and you're telling me Rose can't even clear that bar?

Maybe Roxy's projecting a little. Rose often assumed her mother was acting in bad faith, even when that wasn't necessarily the case, and there's no reason that something similar couldn't be happening here.

...right?

[chrisrin]

hi so i got diagnosed with adhd like 6 months ago after continuously insistently denying i had it to everyone who swore up and down that i did have it. then a psychiatrist was "yeah you have it bro" and i've been re-evaluating everything in my life. anyways. that's context, and with that re-evaluating i've realized something about my hyperfixations and i want to know if:

a) people with adhd relate to it. b) how do you. deal with this. because i think it's somewhat ruining how i interact with media.

anyways, under the read more ->

i've come to realize a pattern with media i consume that i get fixated on. typically this happens with longer media. so stuff like homestuck, and currently with one piece. stuff that i cant binge in an evening or two. (i am on chapter 170 of one piece at the moment of writing this, i read 40 chapters yesterday)

i obviously can't be consuming the new piece of media i'm into every second of my day, in fact, that sounds exhausting.

i have other things i need to get done and, in fact, i NEED to be doing other things because even with something i'm hyperfixated on, my brain will get bored and needs to bounce off other types content. however what this does mean is that every thought i have IS still hyperfixated on the piece of media which means i will still seek out that content even if it's not me reading the original source material.

what this MEANS is that i have all these video essays recommended to me about one piece because youtube has caught on that i am liking and enjoying ONE PIECE (same with twitter. my entire twitter for you page is completely consumed by one piece. i dont know who 2/3rds of these people are please im still in alabasta what is happening) and i Want to Watch them all but i'm in the stage rn where Everything Is A Spoiler so i CANT watch the video essays so ill instead watch them RIGHT UP UNTIL im in the danger zone of being spoiled (sometimes actually risking/getting spoiled) or watching random out of context one piece clips and my one piece friends are all telling me i am just like icarus and flying too close to the sun but i also feel like i can't help the compulsion in some ways? it also means i cannot help but talk about it in every conversation i have with everyone but that seems like, minorly connected to all this.

it's crazy because in my head this is the Worst Stage of the hyperfixation, where i can Only consume the media itself and not all the fan stuff around it. but that's Insane because this should be the best time because i'm literally experiencing the cool media i like for the first time. i feel insane. does anyone else relate to this. how do you deal with it?

[calware]

Do you have any advice on how to write Dirk and Hal or know of anyone I could get tips from :0?

okay so first of all i want to say that i don't think that i'm really an 'authority' on the subject, or that anyone else really can be aside from andrew herself. but i do have some thoughts and opinions that i'm willing to share

#1 piece of advice is to reread the comic once in a while. or at least reread bits and pieces if that's too daunting or not feasible. the POV cam extension is really helpful for that because you can specifically reread just the parts where dirk is there (does not work for hal though iirc which is where the dialogue directory is the next best thing) anyway i suggest doing this because it's always better to have their canon depictions fresh in your mind so you aren't accidentally working off of purely fanon ones

i think this is more of just a writing tip in general but try to think about how much you intend to transform the character. and by that i mean how much you want to stick to canon characterization. no matter how far you go with it, your depiction should always be informed by canon, but you can go as far with it as you want as long as it's intentional. so for example, if you want to stay really close to canon characterization, go for it. but if you want to stick them in an AU, ask yourself how that will change their behavior, personalities, etc. and it you specifically want them to act differently than they do in canon, that's okay too as long as you justify it and make it believable to your reader. you don't have to be afraid of changing them as long as something happened to cause that change

i feel like these are the two biggest pitfalls people fall into, usually a combination of the two. either they just don't understand the character well enough to give a believable portrayal of them, they don't give the audience enough reason to believe their portrayal of them, or both. for example there are a lot of hal fics out there where he is evil and kills people for fun, which to me just tells me that the author didn't really get him. but the takeaway isn't that you should never make hal evil and kill people, just that you need to provide basis for the audience to believe that he would be evil and kill people while still feeling in-character for doing so. that's what i mean by intentionality, you need to understand why you make the artistic choices that you are making

i wrote down some common tropes (?) of hal writing i tend to see that are along the lines of "i see these a lot and they wouldn't be bad if the author just made them feel believable" if that's at all helpful. i can do some for dirk as well if anyone wants me to

3. avoid being reactionary. the homestuck fandom is so reactionary with its portrayal of characters, meaning that one mischaracterization will get popular, and people will complain about it and swing the complete opposite direction, leading to a different mischaracterization becoming popular. an example of this is everyone thinking dirk is the coolest ever, and then switching to think he's the lamest ever. just try to focus on your own perceptions of the characters based on what you read from the comic and what you agree with others on, don't form perceptions based on trying to break away from something else

4. this goes more for dirk than hal because hal isn't as popular, but just keep in mind that dirk isn't the main character. i think a lot of people attribute main character energy to him when they don't really have to. obviously if you write a fic about dirk, he's literally going to be the main character, or if he's your favorite character you're going to care about him more than the others. but that doesn't mean he's any more important, more special, more traumatized, more mentally ill, or what have you, than any other character. going back to the example from above, the people who treat him as both the coolest OR the saddest character are both portraying him as the Special Boy. when the reality is that they are all pretty special and he's not an exception

i hope that all made sense... if not feel free to ask and i can explain further if needed

[homestuckreplay]

As somebody who’s nuerodivergent and has MDD (Major Depressive Disorder aka Clinical Depression), I find those points about John very interesting! Is there any other hints of this throughout the comic that we’ve seen?

hello!! sorry this took so long, I reread every John page so far and I now have a normal length answer to this question!! (2.9k words shhhh) I will broadly talk about neurodivergence first and then depression, but some of these points could apply to either or both.

I’m also neurodivergent, and I’ve had depression in the past, so this is based on my personal experiences + reading through the diagnostic criteria. if anyone else has different experiences I’d love to hear about it!

So my favorite academic article I’ve found this year is in a journal of disability studies by autistic writer David Preyde, and it’s just him listing all his special interests and how and why they became important to him. It reads like a blog post and I love that it was ‘officially’ published. It reminds me so much of how the Homestuck kids have been introduced, just more in depth.

John is hitting some common/stereotypical special interests, like computer programming and movie trivia, and some less common ones, like old comedians. I don’t think the fact of having interests makes John neurodivergent, but his approach to them might. John sees a Con Air reference and immediately starts explaining the plot of the movie (p.132); he also does recreations of Deep Impact (p.21), A Time to Kill (p.109) and Armageddon (p.223) He can list all the rare Gushers flavors (p.979). He thinks Colonel Sassacre will be able to tell him the ‘precise index of elevated hilarity’ of a joke (p.36). John treats things really methodically, he likes to list and sort and categorize. It’s why he likes programming computers but isn’t good at it – he knows it’s a great hobby for all that, but hasn’t quite mastered the rules yet.

This is also how he figured out punch card alchemy. Not only does he pick up a new skill much quicker when it relates to an existing special interest (stage magic), but he’s a super fast problem solver when the rules make sense and it works the same every time. He prefers familiarity, taking a while to adjust to changes, like taking time to warm up to the new MSPA adventure (p.112).

I would even argue that John’s sylladex could be a new special interest – it’s something he’s just found at the start of the comic (while his friends have all been into it for a while) and he’s deeply frustrated by the rules at first, when its behavior constantly changes due to different numbers of cards, lack of available cards, options to combine items, new modi, etc. But he still works at it for hours even though it’s hard, because it’s captivated him somehow. He picks up the language and techniques at a speed that’s only possible for someone very dedicated, and he’s super excited to get the control deck for his birthday, a very practical gift that other kids might be bored by. This is like the Homestuck equivalent of getting a backpack with a lot of pockets.

John is really proud of the computer wallpaper he made (p.25) and still gives his dad drawings to put on the fridge (p.253) – he’s very earnest about his interests. He also kind of has the fandom impulse to create his own canon that he likes better than the source material – upon seeing Harry Anderson: Wise Guy, he thinks that ‘Mike Caveney's glowing treatment of the man does him every bit of justice’ (p.253), but when he actually re-reads the book, Caveney’s ‘ambivalent attitude toward [John’s] favorite magician in these anecdotes always struck [him] as a little weird’. John is inventing Wise Guy fanfiction in his head which is incredible. It’s also an example of black and white thinking, and the quick switch from one extreme to the other in opinions without much room for nuance, that John often exhibits.

John also has a lot of specific object fixations, or comfort objects – the Con Air bunny has quickly become this. In the original movie the bunny is owned by a 7-year-old girl, while John presents as a 13-year-old boy, someone for who it’s far less socially acceptable to own a stuffed animal – but John isn’t concerned about that. The green slime ghost pogo ride is another object he returns to over and over – other people might see that as a dangerous knockoff piece of junk, but to John it carries a lot of meaning (p.105, 476). He’s always carrying things like a wizard’s hat (p.44) or shaving cream (p.488) in his sylladex that have no practical use, he just wants to have them.

John is really weird in social interactions, and often tries to avoid them altogether. The lengths John goes to to not run into his dad while exploring the house in the first 100 pages take more time and effort than actually talking to him, but John avoids him no matter the cost. On page 30 he’s also frustrated because Dave is texting him again, and John wants to be left in peace to look at his video games. Not play the games, just look at them. It’s very relatable to me to want to just enjoy my cool stuff even when not actively engaging in it, and to have a lot of ‘off time’ even from my close friends.

John responds to Rose’s genuine sentiments with ‘haha, oh jeez, that is silly!’ (p.256) and struggles with getting his dad to talk about his nanna’s death – on page 543 he considers asking her about it directly; I think some neurotypical people may see that as an unwritten social taboo. But John isn’t uncaring; he marks his friends’ birthdays on his calendar (p.999) and buys them all personalized gifts that they all end up loving, even if Rose interprets hers as a ‘subtle dig’ which John didn’t intend (p.442). John also says ‘ok, i guess i will take your word for it’ to Nanna (p.420) could come across as passive-aggressive, but John means it so genuinely.

John struggles to see beyond his own perspective, like when he’s surprised that it’s already dark in Rose’s house (p.174) despite knowing where she lives. He’s generally very preoccupied with his own concerns, but he eventually remembers to ask Rose ‘are you ok? hasn't your house been on fire for like... five hours now?’ He clearly cares about the people he’s close to, but doesn’t show it in the most obvious ways.

John is hilarious, but he doesn’t tell jokes in a standard format. He is straightforward in all social interactions, and doesn’t have the bantering instinct that Rose and Dave do. Some top tier examples of John humor: ‘it is understandable because you are really attractive. i am attracted to you... jk haha’ (p.35), ‘oh, btw... jk I was wearing a funny disguise this whole time. gotcha! hehehehe’ and Rose’s accompanying response of ‘I know, John.’ (p.63), and ‘yeah, more like the opposite of all those things is the thing that is true!’ (p.386). He clearly has the jokester’s spirit, but unusual execution.

John generally takes things at face value, thinking that Jade ‘seems like a pretty regular girl’ (p.652), and his dynamic with Dave is really fascinating. All their conversations read like Dave is doing a bit and John is taking him completely seriously, but Dave isn’t making fun of John, they’re both having a good time. So it’s not like when a so-called normal kid bullies a weird kid in school, it’s more like these two people who are both different flavors of neurodivergent bouncing off each other in a way that unexpectedly works. This also explains why John hates GameBro and Dave likes it – John takes it seriously while Dave is reading it as a satire of other gaming magazines. (I actually don’t know which is true).  

John has a bunch of rigid rules for the world that read like shortcuts – he doesn’t innately understand societal norms, but has figured out these approximations through careful observation. A kid’s yard must have a tire swing (p.27), a fireplace must have a fire (p.50), and a father must have a pipe (p.74) and by satisfying the checkboxes you can make a family. He’s hesitant to break rules he knows even when it’s a logical course of action, like when he doesn’t want to break the window of his dad’s car to get the Sburb disc and save Rose’s life (p.289).

But if he hasn’t added something to his List of Known Social Rules, it’s open season – he’s completely unconcerned when he accidentally throws one of Dad’s harlequin figurines into the abyss (p.266) even though he gets upset when the things he likes are defaced. The imps are ‘stupid lousy’ for ‘mucking up all [John’s] cool stuff’ (p.473) and have ‘fucking ruined’ his movie posters which ‘were like children to [him]’ (also another example of object fixation). John being overly cautious in some social situations but totally oblivious in others is SO neurodivergent to me, so obviously someone who wants to get it right, but doesn’t have the innate skill.

John clearly struggles with emotional regulation, I don’t think he’s good at masking in face-to-face interactions, and even online ones when he gets stressed enough. He also has very physical reactions to emotional distress (and excitement!), and that can’t be explained by the medium needing to show emotions visually, because he does this to a FAR greater extent than Rose and Dave. John does a victory dance when he wins in battle (p.405) but scrunches up his face and covers his ears when Nannasprite offers him cookies (p.429). Some panels where he’s having a meltdown are really evocative, and it’s so easy for me to imagine how he must be feeling – the chaos of page 517, where John is paralyzed and panicked from way too many stimuli both inside and outside his head, is my best example.

His panic is also evident in his pesterlogs with Dave and Jade shortly after arriving in the Medium. He’s pretty rude to Dave, saying ‘dude, i don't have time for your nerdy raps!’ (p.204) and his sudden use of lots of exclamation points make all his messages sound distressed. He pours the whole story of his meteor escape to Jade, seemingly unable to stop himself (p.293) where someone with more control over their emotional responses might bottle it up, or at least calm down before explaining the story to a friend.

John’s intrusive thoughts are part of the medium; hearing commands in his head is better explained by the story’s rules than by John’s mental state. However, studies have found that intrusive thoughts are very common among humans – they’re just easy to dismiss for most people, while a small minority find them distressing to the point that they affect daily life.

Rose posits that John’s reactions to WV’s commands could be ‘the early symptoms of an anxiety disorder, like post-traumatic stress’ but I read it a little differently; I think his distress at WV’s commands, as opposed to the background radiation of reader commands, kind of represents how a symptom that is manageable in one context becomes debilitating in another.

Related to commands, John likes having clear instructions to follow, and doesn’t respond well to uncertainty. When he has no idea how to use the alchemiter, he just stands on it (p.161) – but he also doesn’t uncritically accept authority. He defers to expertise and likes to ask specific questions and get clear instructions before acting, but that has to be earned. He sees Rose as smart and capable in general, so he follows her instructions within Sburb (for example, p.178) unless he has a better idea (for example, p.187). But the Wayward Vagabond hasn’t earned John’s trust or done anything besides shout and insult him, so John resists his commands (for example, p.264).

A few miscellaneous things I noticed are John just HAVING to complete high fives with his sprite’s raised arm (p.198, 880), John being clumsy and accidentally toppling his nanna’s urn (p.53), John having very strong preferences when it comes to food, as he loves Gushers enough to get them as a birthday gift (p.972) but pulls instinctive faces of disgust at the thought of eating cookies (p.430), and the line ‘there is apparently no crisis so imminent that will deter you from contemplating idiotic and frivolous actions’ (p.199). I think that someone whose brain processes things differently may appear idiotic and frivolous, and they might even internalize that perspective, but the logic actually makes sense. (In this case, John trying to eat a unit of build grist taught him more about how grist as a gaming abstraction works).

Most evidence for John’s depression is in early act 1, before the plot really kicks off. John is very depersonalized at the start of the story; it’s only on his thirteenth birthday that he gets given a name, and he’s associated with a regularly-changing disguise throughout the first hundred pages. There’s a broader theme of mistaken identity in his home – his dad might be a clown or might be a businessman, the figurines might be clowns or harlequins or mimes, the poster on the wall might be Michael Cera but isn’t, and both John’s dad’s room and his own room are not what he expected them to be.

I think this theme of disguise relates to how John doesn’t see himself as having a real identity, perhaps not even a recognizable personality outside of his interests. I also think John is much better at masking his depression than his neurodivergence in a way that’s pretty tragic. Both Rose (p.63) and Dad (p.89) see through John’s CLEVER DISGUISE immediately and think they know John for it, but there’s another part to the disguise that they never notice.

John puts himself down a lot in the early story, insulting his own taste in movies and skills at programming in his list of interests (p.4), thinking of himself as a pooplord (p.5), as neither a skilled magician nor cunning prankster (p.8), stupid (p.16), etc. The “sad clown paradox” (for sure one of my favorite Wikipedia article titles) refers to the correlation between comedians and depression, and while it’s not universal, I think it’s very true for John. Playing a prank on someone and seeing their reaction is a moment of predictable pleasure in an endless drudgery of whiling away the hours, and those tiny bursts of dopamine – and connection with another person, if they respond well – are what keeps John going.

John struggles to focus on reading – every book he owns, we’ve seen him contemplate reading and put off until later. He does this with Colonel Sassacre’s (p.32, 69, 885), Wise Guy (p.123, 253), Data Structures for Assholes (p.116), and the Shaving Almanac (p.544). When he does sit down to read, he’s easily distracted (p.391) – he has good reason here, but this struggle to focus could be a sign of depression. This could be why John has an interest, paranormal lore, that we don’t really see him engage in; it’s easy for depression to take the joy out of something that was once filled with it.

I actually think it’s really interesting how Homestuck’s version of Wise Guy presents Harry Anderson – John’s hero – as a clumsy, incompetent fool (p.629) while the real world Wise Guy describes him as charismatic and in control of the crowd. I say this with all the love in the world, but John has the charisma of the fake Harry Anderson and not the real, and he believes that of himself too. John picking a hero who is described in such a negative light speaks to the type of people he identifies with.

On page 82, which is both the Homestuck title card and the best evidence for John’s depression, he refers to the streets as ‘empty’, to the ‘voids keeping neighbors apart’, ‘hollow’, ‘Desolation’, to feeling something ‘missing’, ‘eluding’, a sense of ‘lack’, ‘Absence’, a ‘mystery dispersing’, a ‘black well’. All that imagery is packed into two paragraphs that do not describe a happy person. This sense of emptiness, distance, space and loss of something is what I most associate with depression, and it provides a real contrast to those autistic meltdown moments where John is feeling too much.

John explicitly says that he feels trapped in his room (p.30) but I think he’s actually trapped in a mindset, and the room or house is more like the physical manifestation of that. That’s not a criticism of him, as I think that can be equally hard to break out of. I have talked a lot about growing up in the suburbs being terrible for finding community, but there is another angle. The Egberts are comfortably middle class, Dad has a car, money, flexible enough work schedule to take John’s birthday off, and supports John’s interests. There are probably computer programming clubs or amateur magic classes in a nearby city, and if John said he wanted to join something like that, I bet Dad would support him. John’s depression makes it impossible for him to even imagine a better situation, much less take steps to grasp it – he needed to be seconds from death for his survival instincts to kick in and make him take action.

I hope that answers your question! Again, I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this if anyone has different experiences or picked up on different John moments.

[handwrittenhello]

i think its kind of ridiculous to think that homestucks are seriously using bots in this poll because why the hell would they bot this poll instead of the tumblrwoman poll which was the poll EVERYBODY in the hs fandom was actually making a big deal out of . also because im going to be real but i dont think anyone cares about polls enough to rig one? even the bayonetta/miku poll turned out to actually not be vriska voter fraud (most people in the homestuck fandom voted miku anyway) i think people are just unable to comprehend that a lot of people are still dormantly into homestuck & probably just saw vriska serket at the front of the trending disco elysium tag and thought it was funny. like oh my godddd no one cares enough about the outcome of this poll to bot it . somebody with a lot of followers probably just posted about it on twitter or something mundane like that its not that deep . a lot of people on tumblr have read homestuck its not extraordinary that a lot of vriska voters exist. disco elysium fans im sorry your blorbo is losing you’ll probably be back in the lead in a couple hours anyway all of you need to chill out‼️‼️‼️

answering only this ask about the cheating/botting, and no others, because i'm getting a lot of asks about it. congratulations, this contest has officially had all the fun sucked out of it.

here's data i've been collecting for every poll i've run. it's organized by votes the character received per round, then the total number of votes on that poll, for all five rounds. then there are two columns for totals.

the next five columns, Notes 1-5, are the number of notes on each poll. i've highlighted two posts that were circulated with a greater-than-average frequency even after the poll ended (the loki/JC one because people were memeing on JC, and then HDB/Howl one because it gained popularity following a popular blogger reblogging it.)

V/N is the votes to notes ratio for each poll. it was taken by dividing the number of votes when the poll ended by the number of notes on each post. one limitation is that this was not taken at the same time each day, and so older posts will have slightly higher notes. however, i believe this uncertainty isn't enough to discount the conclusions i'll come to.

i've highlighted vriska's V:N ratio in red at the top. as you can see, round vriska's V:N ratio wasn't even the highest; she beat kaeya alberich easily, and the comments in the notes reflected that.

in round 2, things started to get interesting. this is where i and other people noticed a sudden flip, but i didn't think much of it. she was up against izzy hands. izzy was leading all day, and when i queued the next day's poll and went to bed, izzy was leading by 60%. when i woke up, it had flipped to 53/47 in vriska's favor. it's not a HUGEamount, but it is a NOTICEABLE amount.

keep in mind that every single day, there have been other, closer polls, that hovered around 49-50-51 all day, and which also flipped at the end of the day, or remained 50/50 and could only be determined by tumblr. in these cases, the notes also reflect the split. these polls also never swayed more than one or two percent.

in round 3, when vriska faced zuko, there was a clear and immediate lead for zuko, with him leading by 80%. keep in mind that by this point, all 28 other polls i ran, besides vriska's the day before, never swayed more than 1 or 2% once a clear lead had been established.

this poll went from 80/20 zuko to 59/41 vriska. that's RIDICULOUS. the only way that's possible is if an OVERWHELMING amount of people voted vriska and NO people voted zuko. for such a thing to happen, this post would need to spread really rapidly, right? surely this post had tens of thousands of notes and comments!

the V:N ratio for round 3 is TWENTY-SEVEN to one. that's the most out of any poll. the standard deviation for the round 3 polls is 9.0, compared to 4.8 and 4.9 the days before. not to mention reading those notes also does not get us an overwhelming amount of comments rooting for vriska.

today has also been highly suspicious. it started out with an 85/15 lead for harry. i wouldn't necessarily expect it to hold exactly at that percentage, but the flip was immediate and drastic. you can see the trend being tracked on this post. not at all suspicious, right? also note that the comments all day have been 95% rooting for harry and maybe 5% for vriska.

please also look at the GRAND TOTAL column, which has reliably predicted the winners of future polls each day. vriska has received 49,064 votes over the course of the whole contest. harry has received 64,644. that's 24% more votes. and yet the poll is locked at 50/50?

and if this isn't enough evidence for you, then remember the tumblr sexywoman poll. it is a FLAT FUCKING FACT that those polls were spammed by bots. out of respect for their privacy i won't go into detail, but they outright admitted it.

TO CONCLUDE,

it's pretty fucking obvious that something is up, and although i admit that there's simply no concrete way of proving it, there would have to be a really standout explanation for this.

and besides this being super lame, it's also removed all the fun from this contest. it's a stupid tumblr poll that wins literally nothing, congratulations!

also, to everyone making death threats in the notes, BOTH SIDES, you've failed my secret challenge of not being rude which means i'm judging you personally. be fucking nice.

[reallife6anoufriev6boy6]

DROP THE LORE ON YOUR HOMESTUCK AU !!!!!!!!!!!!111

tcc homestuck au!

im so excited to talk about this holy shit. you guys should ask me for more au content - i have so many aus!

so to start, im following the basic naming rule in homestuck where they have to have six letter names. thats why theyre names will be “misspelled” here.

however, im not following the normal zodiac colors because thats boring. they will also have their natural hair colors because i cant seem them having black hair…

anyways!

ERICCK HARRIS

doomedRebel [DR]

gunkind

prince of time

ericck is a seemingly average bronzeblood troll, however unlike his counterparts he isnt as meek and submissive to their highblood overlords.

he has a mind of his own as theyd say and he isnt afraid to speak it, but of course hes smart enough to not say it so freely.

he has been apart of several groups who tried to start rebellions, but they were quickly brought down. he was lucky to not have been caught, but now he has been putting together a plan with his moirail.

his lusus is a big dog that closely resembles a doberman.

ericck is pretty average height, a little lanky, but seemingly well rounded minus the dip in his chest. he has a short, brown buzzcut thats almost constantly covered by a backwards hat. he always wears a white tshirt with his zodiac sign on it in black as well as jeans and boots.

kismesis: none

auspistice: none

matesprite: none

moirail: dylann klebold

DYLANN KLEBOLD

vengefulVodka [VV]

gunkind

knight of breath

dylann is the lowest on the spectrum, being a redblood, but he seems to get around easy enough.

he shares the same hatred for their system with ericck and it was how they bonded quickly, being moirails since he could remember. he doesnt speak his mind about it as much as his friend, but he still thinks the same way.

hes a little more laid back and calm, but its not hard to get him on edge. him and ericck are very protective of each other and will snap quickly if the other is bothered.

dylann is tall and lanky, not quite fitting into his body. he has shoulder length blonde hair that he occasionally wears in a pony tail, but typically has a hat to cover it. he wears a black t shirt with his zodiac symbol on it in red and jeans with boots.

his lusus is a dog as well, but it more closely resembles a german shepherd.

kismesis: none

auspistice: none

matesprite: none

moirail: ericck harris

ARTYOM ANOUFRIEV

ostentatiousHammer [OH]

hammerkind

bard of heart

artyom is a perpetually sober purpleblood who does not partake in absolutely any activities or traditions associated with his blood color.

his lack of sopor intake though has caused him to constantly be on edge, ready to hurt. theres never a dull moment with him.

he has a large ego and is rather pretentious. he says to not like their societal system, but he only likes it when it works for him. he is a very violent individual, but is well liked by others around him.

artyom is tall and skinny with a blonde, silky mullet. he wears a black t shirt with his zodiac sign on the top corner along with jeans and boots.

he does not have a lusus. his lusus abandoned him very early on, which would mean certain death, but he was able to live on his own and stay under the radar.

kismesis: none

auspistice: none

matesprite: none

moirail: nikita lytkin (?)

NIKITA LYTKIN

dismemberedHead [DH]

hammerkind

page of doom

nikita has an unknown blood color, having kept it a secret since the day he was hatched. no one knows about it besides artyom - whether thats a good or bad thing is up for debate.

he’s extremely introverted and doesnt talk to anyone outside of his moirallegience and typically keeps to himself. hes incredibly self destructive and depressed with poor hygiene.

his relationship with artyom is complicated and toxic. they identify as moirails, but he feels flushed for him while artyom on the other hand is halfway to feeling pitch.

nikitas average height with a skinny body besides the fat that sticks out here and there. he has greasy black hair thats plastered to his head and he wears a black hoodie with his favorite band, jeans, boots, a bandana around his face and sunglasses.

he lacks a lusus as well, having been abandoned early on too. he didnt handle it as well as his friend.

kismesis: none

auspistice: none

matesprite: none

moirail: artyom anoufriev (?)

[the-meat-machine]

It only recently occurred to me that the two characters the Condesce forcibly turns to her side -- Jane and Jade -- are her daughters. The two alien girls she raised in two different timelines. Different versions of them, but still. She brings her heiresses over to her side.

And it's interesting -- I've always thought there were hints that the Condesce is sincere, albeit very twisted, in her desire to take on an heiress. I can't imagine that HIC would ever cede power completely, but making her heiress(es) her second-in-command? I can see that. And indeed, that's exactly what she does.

My biggest reason for thinking that this is something the Condesce cares about is this passage from Meenah:

MEENAH: just makes me think about my kid descendant MEENAH: an how instead of having this cool friendsy relation with her i just got this uncontrollable urge to stab her to death so she dont threaten my supremacy MEENAH: which is a shame cuz she so cute 38( MEENAH: cod damn my royal blood and the cray junk it makes me have to do MEENAH: aw well MEENAH: maybe some day ill find an heiress who my genes dont instinctively make me wanna murder on sight MEENAH: then i can teach her the badass ways of being a boss n shit!

There are two things I'm taking from these lines:

Meenah (and by extension, the Condesce) has a biological urge to kill any other fuchsia-blooded troll she meets

Meenah would sincerely like to take on a protege (and specifically a female one) and "teach her the badass ways of being a boss n shit"

So does this also apply to the Condesce? Would she, deep down, like to have an heiress who wouldn't be a rival or a threat, but someone she could mentor? Personally, I think the whole point of Meenah's little digression here is to imply that she would.

Now, in HIC's own universe, she's never able to realize this desire. Hell, she probably never even considered that it might be something she'd want at all. Any fuchsia-blooded contender for the throne would be eliminated at all costs, and anyone below fuchsia was unworthy of consideration.

But then she makes her way into the human universe, and as part of her new master's plans, she has to take in a pair of human children -- one boy (Jake) and one girl (Jane). Then, later, she progresses into a different version of that universe and takes on another pair (John and Jade). She doesn't seem to care much about the boys.* But the girls? Perhaps she sees a bit of herself in them. These alien girls present her with a possibility that she's never considered before in all her millennia of life: heiresses she can take under her wing instead of kill on sight.

And so, when she finally gets the opportunity to corrupt two of the kids to her side, the ones she chooses are the alternate universe versions of her daughters.**

Of course, the Condesce can't just let her heiresses run around making their own decisions. That would be ridiculous. But she can unleash them from their self-imposed limitations, rid them of all those pesky morals and qualms that are holding them back. She can show them how to be badass take-no-shit bitches like true heiresses should be. And she'll groom them to take on high-ranking positions in her future empire, to help her keep the populace in line.

Hell, she'll even throw them a bone or two. Give them some gifts. Let 'em have some fun. Because I notice that despite HIC's utter revulsion for human reproductive practices -- a revulsion so strong it lead her to wipe out the entire human race -- she still allows Jane to hold Jake captive with the intention of using him to sire heirs. (Or should I say... heiresses.) The fact that HIC apparently not only doesn't object to this but seems to incorporate it into her plans is HUGE. She'll permit her heiress something she would never allow for any other human.

Anyway. The Condesce cares about her daughters. Heartwarming <3 Yet another fun example in Homestuck of patterns of abuse and oppression being perpetuated through family bonds.

------

Footnotes:

* Sorry for the June erasure, but in canon, HIC is unaware that this particular child may one day grow up to become a woman. If she did know, perhaps she would have taken on a third heiress. An interesting AU to contemplate, perhaps.

** It is interesting that the Condesce chooses Jade even though, in the post-scratch timeline, it was John Crocker who was "loyal" to her and Jade English who ran away. Does she just not consider boys to be valid heirs? Did she have some level of respect for Jade despite her betrayal? Or is she punishing Jade English's betrayal by stealing Jade Harley over to her own side?

[eurydicees]

Also, I just saw you’re 23, I am too! It’s rough out here. Another idea: any characters, what’s it like being 23? Where are they at this point? I feel like hq shows that as being sooo grown up but like I’m just a big teenager right?? Idk just rambling

being 23 is so rough sometimes lmfao. i've got friends from high school getting married and friends from college having early life crises. i'm working full time and living alone but tbh mostly feel like i'm playing at house rn more than i am living on my own. whatever. it's fine. early 20s is just a silly time of life. anyways i don't have a fic for u but i Do have a headcanon list.

in no particular order, haikyuu characters as stupid things i've done in my early twenties:

atsumu: having a brother who is a chef does not prevent him from forgetting to take the cheese packet out of the mac and cheese box and dumping that into boiling water with the pasta.

udai: does not remember the last time he ate a vegetable.

oikawa: friends all went to a party without him and his coping method was getting so so so wasted on white rum and falling asleep on the living room carpet immediately after giving another friend a tarot card reading saying their breakup is imminent (to be fair, it was. but it was still kinda rude).

iwaizumi: after class, was led to a private stairwell by a friend, jokes "haha are you taking me to a hidden location to kill me." and then received a love confession. proceeded to say "uh. i'll think about it." then did finger guns. and said "im just gonna. go" and then fucking. ran. like not exaggerating, ran.

kageyama: went on a date. did Not At All Know it was a date, despite the very very obvious flirting. yes this was the same person as in the previous bullet point. don't look at me like that.

akaashi: took a 100 level class senior year and did not pay attention to a single lecture. instead wrote thousands of words of fanfiction in the classroom every day.

atsumu (again): another cooking one. i just think he'd be a terrible cook. sorry. anyways. "it's been 20 min, why isn't this scallion pancake im pan frying cooking yet?" (<- did not turn on the stove burner.)

yachi: hm the light in this room doesn't work. guess i'll just learn to see in the dark instead of inconveniencing anyone by asking to fix it.

akaashi (again): completely fell in love at first sight, but fast forward five months and it actually somehow worked out? however the five months were filled with the most insufferable pining possible, which could have been resolved so so so easily. also started talking about marriage, like, six months in.

bokuto: got sad. went out into a raging snowstorm in socks and no jacket. laid down in the snow for a long time. somehow, miraculously, didn't get a cold afterwards?

akaashi and/or yachi: changed majors and career paths because a pretty upperclassman asked them to. (i am very happy in my chosen path but jesus christ THAT was why i did it?)

hinata: flew from coast to coast of the country, then drove halfway back to the midwest in the span of three days. started a new job on the fourth day. didn't sign a lease on an apartment until the fifth day.

semi: skipped a day of work to drive four hours there and four hours back for a fall out boy concert. totally worth it but driving at 4am after a concert wasn’t the smartest thing ever to be done.

kuroo: started reading homestuck in the year of our lord 2024. this is an attempt to remain in contact with long distance friendships (by doing a bookclub) but jesus fucking christ dude.

ok this is getting too long and i needed to be ready for work, like 15 min ago lol. maybe i'll write more of these later, but i hope you enjoy these and my silly disasters are a little comforting :)