#look. im hoping at least SOMEONE will read this a;lkdsjf

[mystt]

i have a lot of thoughts about the state of homestuck right now and no one to talk to about it. im so sorry

i really want to love june egbert with all my heart, accept her with open arms!!! i relate so much to the idea of a weird awkward guying going thru a lot of his life feeling like something was wrong, like there was a disconnect between himself and the rest of the world, only to eventually realize that the problem was so deeply rooted that he never even realized that it could BE the problem! all of the art has been amazing, of seeing this just-out trans girl finally ecstactic to be herself and her friends meeting her for the first time all over again. the #juneisreal party on twitter yesterday was the most joyous and connected ive seen the homestuck fandom be for a long time!! but, because this is homestuck, i dont think everything about this situation is all sunshine and rainbows, not in the longterm anyway.....

frankly, a lot of ppl aren’t too happy about this, and they have every right to feel that way.  i can sympathize with those people because tbh i wasn’t a huge fan of roxy being transmasc in the epilogues (to be fair, theyve grown a lot on me now that ive had some time to think about it / see content involving them)! john has been an established character for a long time, someone that a lot of ppl have grown a very deep and personal connection with! its totally possible that someone read homestuck, interpreted john’s character in a very similar way to i just did, and come at the totally opposite outcome! maybe john is actually a trans guy and has a lot of trepidation navigating sexuality and gender because of it. the point is that all of it is valid, and as long as everyone respects eachother’s headcanons we’ll all be fine and dandy, right?

well, with hussie making her ‘real,’ the fandom dynamic around june (and roxy) content will inevitably change. the letter that hussie wrote for the epilogue is a bunch of garbage but it basically boils down to the epilogues not really being an epilogue but an on/off ramp to whatever homestuck ends up being in the future. this all but guarantees more june/transmasc roxy content, which im totally down for, but will that content be as ‘dubiously canon’ as the epilogues were? and if not, what happens then? 

are we supposed to believe that basically all homestuck content from this point on is al-a-carte, where each reader is able to pick and choose what is and isn’t canon? we were already doing that, but that’s the fandom’s job! call me crazy but there has to be some separation between fanon and canon! otherwise, you get complete mob-rule anarchy, which we’ve already seen wrt roxy and june!

homestuck is in a lose-lose situation with its characters at this point. the core appeal of the WHOLE DAMN COMIC is that all of its characters have very defined personalities and very amorphous everything else. homestuck is so everlasting because every reader comes out of it with their own permutations of each character in their head.....almost like.....a headcanon, u could call it!

but at the same time, homestuck has to have more ~representation~ in its cast nowadays. its just the trend that all media is following as people demand to see more of themselves reflected in the things they enjoy. that is absolutely valid in most forms of media where characters are well-defined in their identity, but that doesn’t work with homestuck, because no matter what you WILL be stepping on the toes of someone’s version of a character that they’ve been fostering in their own head for god knows how long

i think there ARE ways to make homestuck’s cast more diverse in a concrete way without making everyone upset! the first is to......make new characters......if homestuck really is entering a new era, why can’t it burst onto the scene with a new rainbow cast of misfits for everyone to imprint themselves onto? not enough trans mlm rep? why not make a new one (that isnt lanque)! not enough canon autistic rep? hire an autistic person to make an autistic character! friendsim would’ve been perfect for this, but they didnt take advantage of it basically AT ALL (and where they did they......kinda fucked up lmao)

something else ive seen suggested is to establish new identities for characters that don’t fundamentally change who they are. if you’re like me and you think homestuck needs more trans girls, why would you take JOHN of all ppl and make him mtf when you have a perfectly good rose....or jade....or terezi (or roxy but eh. thats not on the table anymore) right there!  

and i think its important to say that i dont blame this at all on the original creators of the june headcanon, i appreciate what theyve done and the works theyve inspired a lot! its not their fault, but things have really REALLY got out of hand. with pesterquest on the horizon, i think we’re in a fascinating and nervous period for homestuck. things are going to be changing soon, and i dont know if its gonna be for the better :C